HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND ILO DIRECTOR-GENERAL TO HOST DISCUSSION ON DISCRIMINATION AND RACIAL PREJUDICE AT WORK

HR/01/44
25 May 2001




The challenges companies face in combatting discrimination and fostering equality in the workplace and in the wider community will be on the agenda as experts from business, organized labour and the human rights fields meet in Geneva on 30 May alongside the final preparatory meeting for the Durban World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (31 August to 7 September 2001).

The panel, meeting under the auspices of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Labour Organization, aims to highlight key problems business leaders
face in ensuring workplace equality and to identify approaches through which companies, trade unions and governments can work together to make real progress towards valuing diversity and overcoming discrimination. As High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has noted, "Racism, discrimination and intolerance challenge all parts of society", the business sector included. Companies are influenced by the racism and intolerance in the communities surrounding them. They mirror it, sometimes reinforce it and always pay the price racism and discrimination exact on society. They naturally have a role to play in combatting it.

The panel discussion comes within the framework of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Global Compact initiative aimed at promoting business initiatives to further respect for human rights, basic labour standards and the environment. The results of the discussion will contribute to a high-level event at the World Conference in Durban in which the Secretary-General and organizations participating in the Global Compact will take part.

Panellists

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia and the High Commissioner for Human Rights will open the discussion, entitled, "Discrimination and Racial Prejudice: The Challenge at Work".
The session will take place in room XXIII of the Palais des Nations and last from 1.15 p.m to
3 p.m.. The panellists will be:

Sven Eckerstein, Deputy CEO and VP of Human Resources, Volvo Car Corporation; Bokkie Botha, National confederal business organization of South Africa; Gay McDougall, Member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination;

David Onyalo, National Director, Anti Racism and Human Rights Department, Canadian Labour Congress; and John Wrench, Danish Centre for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Southern Denmark.

For more information, please contact Jose Diaz, +41 22 917 92 42, +41 79 217 30 09, jdiaz.hchr@unog.ch; or John Doohan, +41 22 799 89 06.



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