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Appendix
PRINCIPLES/COMMITMENTS ON RACE AND POVERTY
NGO Roundtable on Race and Poverty
Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Americas
Santiago de Chile, 3-7 December 2000
- The World Conference should recognize that racial discrimination has
high economic costs for all countries and for the global economy
generally and that all individuals and communities have a right to a
decent standard of living and to pursue their livelihood without
compromising their cultural, religious and other identities;
- States should affirm that globalization and economic growth
has in some cases resulted in the worsening of the economic, social
and cultural conditions of the most vulnerable groups, with negative
consequences on poverty and social exclusion, thereby heightening
inequality among and within States, increasing pressure to migrate,
and impeding efforts to fight racism and racial discrimination;
- States should recognize that the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and
other international standards, affirm that affirmative action and the
evaluation of the impact of policies on racial equality, for men and
women, are required in order to address past and present
discrimination, create truly equal opportunity, and promote full
participation inclusive of the diverse populations, in the economic,
political, civil, social, and cultural life of all nations;
- The World Conference should recognize that for centuries, wealth
(e.g. concentration of land, political power, education, employment)
were accumulated or appropriated through coercive political, social
and economic means which have disproportionately benefited the
descendants of white Europeans and that States should take concerted
action to curtail this privilege in order to reach the goal of
equality for all;
- States, international development and financial institutions should
recognize and document the intersection between racial discrimination,
gender discrimination and poverty and take into account differential
impacts in developing appropriate remedies. States should further
recognize that as the primary caretakers of families, women are
disproportionately subject to the effects of racially discriminatory
social and economic policies, including those which directly affect
children (e.g. in education) and the elderly;
- The regional meeting of the Americas should recognize that
throughout the Americas racism afflicts people with racial and ethnic
origins from around the world, including Asia, the Pacific Islands,
and Africa as well as indigenous peoples;
- States should collect, compile and publicly disseminate in multiple
languages data disaggregated by race, color, nationality, ethnicity,
sex, age, language, and other factors as appropriate, in order to
review public policies for racially discriminatory effects by
monitoring and comparing the social and economic conditions of
communities with respect to public service delivery, health, housing,
education, employment and other relevant areas;
- States should agree to fulfill their legal obligations to ensure
that all persons in their jurisdiction receive effective remedies for
historic, group-based acts of discrimination which may take the form
of restitution, compensation, indemnification, rehabilitation or
satisfaction;
- States should implement specific programs to ensure that all
individuals, including migrants and regardless of race and language
ability, are aware of their social, economic, civil and political
rights and have full access to their enforcement and realization;
- States should guarantee that development and public policies at
local, regional and national levels should be created in effective
consultation at early stages with marginalized communities,
particularly indigenous people and people of African descent, taking
into account the impact of unequal access to education, language
abilities and so forth, on the capacities of certain communities to
participate in dialogue with policy-makers;
- States should recognize that "the right to development is an
inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all
peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy
economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all
human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized"
(Declaration on the Right to Development);
- The World Conference should call for the cancellation of debt for
developing countries, requiring governments to apply released funds to
programs which address conditions caused by racial discrimination;
- The World Conference should recognize that governments should
provide effective protections for the intellectual and cultural
properties of indigenous peoples and African descendants;
- States should recognize the nexus between racism and the denial of
self-determination and take all necessary steps to uphold the right to
self-determination, including the adoption of the Declaration of
Indigenous Rights, to ensure that indigenous peoples are afforded all
rights due to them as a "peoples" and that development
policies are created with respect to cultural integrity;
- States should enact legislation, including special measures, to
recognize, demarcate and protect the lands, territories and resources
of indigenous peoples and further ensure their right to continue their
hunting and fishing lifestyle and land-based cultures. Such
legislation must recognize indigenous peoples’ inherent right to
self-determination, traditional practices and law of land tenure based
on common ownership and use, and must be developed only with the
participation and free consent of the indigenous peoples concerned;
- The International Labor Organization and international development
and financial institutions should agree
to work with regional bodies such as the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to develop a code of
conduct to be adopted by transnational corporations with respect to
work-force and labor migration
issues that generate persistent patterns of
racial discrimination;
- International development and financial institutions should
regularly monitor, and report on, funded
programs for their racial impact and equal
participation of racial and ethnic groups, suspending programs on
evidence of racial discrimination, indirect or direct;
- States should agree to work with the private sector,
non-governmental organizations and other States to
promote investment and create more living-wage jobs
in impoverished or under-developed local urban and
rural communities and implement enforceable codes of
conduct providing protection from racial
discrimination in private economic enterprise
necessary for economic development, such as private lending;
- States should uphold the fundamental human rights of workers
(documented and undocumented) to organize
and to improve their wages, benefits and working
conditions, and should provide legal protection to all
migrants (documented or undocumented) against
deportation for reporting the abuse of their rights,
implementing the relevant articles of
international human rights treaties in relation to the right to work
under just and favorable conditions, equal pay for equal work the
right to fair wages and a life free from slavery, servitude and
enforced labor;
- States should guarantee equal access to all levels of education,
regardless of legal immigration status, and recognize that without education the realization of
all other rights is impeded;
- The World Conference should recognize that globally racism is a
major health determinant for African descendants, indigenous peoples and members of other racial groups
which results in these communities receiving lower standards of healthcare and higher rates of illness
and disease, sometimes with disproportionately fatal consequences.
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