Durban+20: Reflections on Youth and Racism twenty years later

Statement by Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

30 July 2021

Greetings to all of you. This 20th anniversary celebration of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance – and of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action – comes at a key moment in the struggle for racial justice.

All over the world individuals and entire communities who are forced to endure systematic discrimination are taking to the streets to demand change.

This country has particularly deep experience of the movement to combat and discrimination and demand justice, dignity and equality. Other countries have many lessons to learn from events such as the Soweto Youth uprising, 45 years ago; from the bold and tireless struggle against the racist apartheid system; from the struggle of heroines like Charlotte Maxeke, who celebrates her 150th anniversary this year; and from the construction of a new South Africa, under a Constitution that embraces diversity and prohibits unfair discrimination based on race.  

Young people were at the forefront of all these struggles. And indeed, across the world many of today’s social movements, from Fridays for Future to Black Lives Matter, are driven by internationally connected youth, who insist on their right to frame their future.

 The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action rightly underlines the important role of young people in fighting racial discrimination. It calls for active participation by youth in devising strategies to fight racial discrimination. And it urges States to scale up human rights education, including anti-discrimination and anti-racism information to teach young people and children about their right to live in dignity, equality and mutual respect.

States have not always implemented the recommendations laid out in Durban 20 years ago. But that work is growing in urgency today. The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated many forms of discrimination. It exposes and amplifies the disproportionate impacts that result from overlapping inequalities, and demonstrates the painful urgency of achieving equality in every aspect of society and the economy, as well as in law.

The pandemic threatens the education and future prospects of young people all over the world. And those who are hardest hit will be those who have least to begin with – because systemic racism deprives them of equal and adequate access to resources and the benefits of development.

We need to come together to solve the challenges that face humanity.

Just as the United Nations stood up against apartheid, you can be certain that we are at your side in the struggle to end all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Thank you for standing up for human rights.