UN wants end to racism, intolerance

Almost 50 years after the proclamation of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the UN has been told that too many individuals, communities and societies continue to suffer from the injustices and stigma brought by racism.

The major historical tragedies related to racial or ethnic discrimination that had affected global history were not so remote that people could not recall them, said Verene Shepherd, a member of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent of the Human Rights Council and the meeting’s keynote speaker.

The descendants of those who had suffered from the transatlantic slave trade known as the African Maafa or the Jewish Holocaust had sought ways to memorialize their ancestors and find redress for such tragedies, including through reparation.