MEASURES OF PREVENTION, EDUCATION AND PROTECTION AIMED AT THE ERADICATION
OF RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND RELATED INTOLERANCE OF
REFUGEES AT THE NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEVELS

(Keynote speech on Theme 3, NGO Forum, World Conference against Racism, 30
Aug. 2001)

Courtney Mireille O'Connor, Esquire*

Introduction

This is, needless to say, a very broad subject. Given its breadth, I will
take a rather integrated approach in my talk, not just focussing on the
situation of those who are currently uprooted, but on everyone -- from
potential victims at risk of uprooting all the way through to returnees and
post-conflict survivors. I will do so against the background of two
presumptions worthy of mention from the outset:

1. Prevention does not occur just pre-transgression, pre-conflict or
pre-flight. It is the backbone of any serious peace-building or
reconstruction effort.
2. We cannot prevent discrimination without understanding its causes or, in
the words of the World Conference against Racism, its "sources". For this
reason, I will overstep slightly into the Conference theme of "Sources and
Causes" in order to be clear about how we prevent racism and other forms of
discrimination.

"Causes and Sources": The Public-Private Continuum of Notions and
Attitudes about Dominance and Conflict Resolution

The Draft Declaration of the World Conference against Racism repeatedly
refers to the "human family". Drafts from both fora call for the creation
of a new "world" or "international order". All four documents return time
and again to the interrelated nature of human rights and
discrimination. Yet, in my view, all fail to pay anything resembling
sufficient attention to the most fundamental, building block of that "new
order": the individual family. As the Greek philosopher Socrates wrote,
"Let he who would move the world first move himself."

These documents recognize some of the manifestations of racism and other
forms of discrimination within the family and the home, and the draft
Conference Programme of Action recognizes the need for empowerment of women
and girls in their private lives. Yet, both fora fail to recognize the
family's and the home's role as a source or cause of…

1. many forms of discrimination, including on grounds of race, age, sex and
disability;
2. notions of, and needs for pick your term! -- domination, control,
hegemony or perceptions of superiority or supremacy; and
3. violent approaches to…
a. maintenance of control, and
b. conflict resolution.

In other words, the family is where we learn our first and most deeply
rooted lessons on…
1. the balancing of rights,
2. the interrelated nature of rights, and
3. the maintenance or sharing of power and control.

All our work to transform governmental and intergovernmental policy;
advance national and international law; and train judges, lawyers, police,
military, border guards and educators is very valuable, indeed
imperative. But, let's be realistic about how much it achieves.

Such efforts to revolutionize the public sphere modify people's
understanding of what society deems acceptable and unacceptable. Yet, they
rarely change attitudes, motivations or reflexes most of which take root
during childhood,… on the playground, yes, but most profoundly and most
indelibly, in the home and in the family. As the draft NGO Declaration
states in its fifth preambular paragraph,
Racist feelings and attitudes stem from an alienation or disconnection from
a person's sense of inner worth and human dignity.

What is the first and most fundamental source of our sense of inner worth
and personal dignity? Our family. Change in the adult years is little
more than the proverbial icing on the cake. Without the foundation -- or
permanent structure of the person we became during our childhood and
youth, the icing of adult change has no cake on which to rest.

What Happens When the Home and Family Are Ignored in Our Quest for a Human
Rights Revolution?

Where do teenagers who beat an asylum-seeker to death learn to prioritize
their humanity over that of others? Where do they learn to vent their
feelings of frustration and risk through violence? We can't blame it all
on the media….

Poverty, yes, but also abuse and neglect resulting from power imbalances
in the home, drive women and children onto the streets, into the grip of
traffickers in prostitution, and into the ranks of armed forces and groups,
with machine guns in their hands and heavens-knows-what in their
bloodstreams.

I've heard former members of neo-Nazi militia talk about what they gained
from their affiliation with the group -- a sense of belonging and power
after years of feeling isolated and impotent. Who were they isolated from,
or by? Who made them feel impotent? Even if the chief culprits were other
boys in their high school, why did those boys grow up to be so cruel? Why
did the victim not receive a sense of belonging and empowerment from his
family strong enough to compensate for any cruelty he suffered in the
outside world??

Who forgot to teach the peacekeepers who pay for, or even purchase, child
prostitutes of another race or nationality why and how to respect and
cherish women, why and how to appreciate and safeguard the wondrous
innocence of childhood? Was it their military training? Or was there
something about strength in numbers and being given the power of life and
death over others that drew these young men to this profession?

Recommended Action

So, what can we do to eradicate the sources of domination and violence?

Yes, as the draft declarations and programmes of action tell us, we need
to educate and to train. But, in addition to the measures suggested in the
four documents, we need to train…

1. children, youth and adults in peaceful conflict resolution, where they
learn…
a. to use words, instead of physical force, and
b. the value of empathy how allowing oneself to hear and understand
another's position or reality can help us to better communicate and resolve
the problems confronting us.

2. health care workers including doctors how to recognize the warning
signs of domination and excessive control in the home, and how to set in
motion the mechanisms for protection of both the targets and witnesses of
abuse and neglect for both are their victims.

But, we also need to intervene….

Intervention to Stop Domination and Violence in the Family, Break the
Silence Surrounding It and Prevent Its Repercussions in the Rest of Society

In its paragraph 254, the Conference's draft Programme of Action urges the
promotion of "an integrated and holistic approach to the elimination of
all forms of discrimination against women and girls". Why should women and
girls be the only ones to benefit from "integrated and holistic"
action? Why not apply this approach to all forms of discrimination?

Just as the remedy of human rights violations often requires the balancing
of rights, the prevention of such violations usually requires acting on the
intersection of these rights. No "ifs", "ands" or "buts" about it, in the
words of the former United States Attorney General, Janet Reno,

The key around the world to reducing violence and to bringing peace is ...
that we do everything in our power to end violence against women, violence
in the home and violence against families. ... If we do not end it in our
homes, we will not end it in our streets and around this world.

In following Janet Reno's advice, we must not heed the cries of the dreaded
"cultural imperialism" from people unaware of or threatened by the
reality lived by the victims, survivors, witnesses and… potential
perpetrators, whether those objecting are…

* colleagues in a headquarters thousands of miles away, already overwhelmed
by many less challenging tasks, and intimidated by the "otherness" of their
beneficiaries;
* funders who allow their respect for indigenous culture to deafen them to
the calls from indigenous domestic violence victims and activists for help
in breaking the public-private continuum of violence; or
* dominating spouses or parents who do not want to lose what little sense
of control they have in a situation of conflict or uprooting.

If you agree with me, how then should we intervene? I suggest that we
respond to the intersectional nature of human rights violations with
interdisciplinary action. Whether we work for a government, a
non-governmental organization or an intergovernmental organization whether
the situation we address is pre-conflict or during a conflict, one of
asylum or follow-up to voluntary-return, or that of post-conflict
reconstruction we must ensure that, in addition to all the other measures
recommended in the declarations and programmes of action -- and those I
mentioned earlier -- human rights defenders, social workers and the police
work together if possible, as a team -- to protect injured or threatened
family members and pursue the changes within family structure or dynamics
necessary to stop their lessons of domination and control and turn
off these fountains of anger, pain and frustration. Such action would be
in line with the Conference Programme of Action paragraph 55's call for
"empowerment of women and girls… so that they can fully exercise their
rights in all spheres of public and private life". But why not also
empower boys, older persons and people with disabilities who might be
subject to abuse or neglect in their private lives, thereby evening the
playing field of the family even more during the most formative years of a
person's life?

Document-wide Recommendations

Ensure inclusion in both declarations of reference to the family as the
building block of a society free of hegemony and violence, and underline
the need for substantive support and attention to the family as a pivotal
actor in the fight against racism and other forms of discrimination and
domination.

Pursue incorporation in both programmes of action of measures like those
that I have suggested for responding to the intersection of rights with
interdisciplinary action to weed out discrimination and violence based on
race and other forms of "otherness".

Substitute in all documents of the term "at risk", or "at particular risk"
for "vulnerable" whenever referring to traditionally marginalized sectors
of a population. Use of adjectives like "vulnerable" only disempowers such
individuals further by appealing to stereotypes about their weakness. In
the case of adult persons at particular risk, such terms infantilize them
in the eyes of others.

Recommendations regarding Refugee- and Asylum-specific Language

Obviously I have not been privy to the negotiations leading up to the
currently available draft Conference Declaration and Programme of Action,
so I may be speaking out of turn. But, it seems to me that the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees has not spent years -- if not decades clarifying
for the international community the difference between refugees and
migrants in order to have refugees be excluded from references that apply
to both groups, for example those regarding the many positive contributions
that such individuals have made to both their countries of origin and
countries of destination, refugees' and asylum-seekers' victimization by
xenophobia and the need for training of immigration officials about
international standards of refugee protection. I would therefore recommend
that efforts be made to ensure the inclusion of such language in the
Conference Declaration and Programme of Action

The NGO draft Declaration paragraph on patriarchal and sexist
ideologies in the section on uprooted and trafficked persons is an obvious
site for the placement of language regarding the pivotal role of the family
in the fight against hegemonic ideologies and violence, including those
relating to race.

The last paragraph in this section, however, recommends that "rape and
forms of sexual torture" be "recognised as grounds for refugee status". I
suggest deletion or alteration of this language. First, let us be clear
about our terminology here. Rape and torture are methods of persecution,
not reasons or grounds for persecution, as are race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group and political opinion. The 1951
Refugee Convention makes no reference to methods of persecution and, I
think, with good reason. We have already seen how enumeration of the five
reasons for persecution has been used to restrict refugee
recognition. Second, for this reason, as the law stands, nothing impedes
the recognition of refugee status in cases of rape or other forms of sexual
torture. Indeed, numerous cases have already been decided along these
lines.

While the NGO Programme of Action makes some excellent recommendations in
its paragraphs 77 to 80, I would suggest that it avoid language in the
immediately preceding paragraph that may well end up doing more harm than
good. If I understand the document correctly to refer to the allegedly
"Euro-centric" 1951 Convention refugee definition as covering only
"political" refugees, its authors forget that that definition includes four
other reasons for a well-founded fear or persecution, in addition to
political opinion. What's more, why create a new category of "economic
refugees", with no legal basis, when the 1951 refugee definition has been
used in the past and can be used in the future to recognize a refugee, or
group of refugees, where economic discrimination is severe enough to rise
to the level of persecution?

I would, therefore, recommend excision of such confusing language, which
may detract activists from the potential already in the Convention, if
properly used. Creating new terms and ignoring the old ones will not make
a xenophobic government's asylum policy any less restrictive.

Finally, in line with the concerns I expressed about the migrant-refugee
imbalance in the Conference drafts, I would add "refugee protection
standards" to the human rights training recommended for police and
immigration officials in paragraph 130 of the NGO Programme of Action.

* * *

Allow me to conclude with a quotation from an early work by the North
American author, Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, which although not a
summary of the points I have made this morning nonetheless seems
appropriate:
There is really nothing more to say except why. But since why is
difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

I look forward to a stimulating discussion. Thank you.

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