A ticket to ride: spreading the message of diversity

In Mexico during the month of June, around five million people a day carried with them the message, “Vive la diversidad, termina con la discriminación,” or “Embrace diversity: End discrimination”.

The message printed on subway tickets were carried by commuters on Mexico City’s ultra modern Metro system. The Metro is more than 170 kilometres long, second in size only to New York’s subway and in 2008 carried more than 1.4 billion passengers.

Alberto Brunori, the representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico said the subway is a space in which diversity is expressed. “Discriminatory patterns above ground are not repeated in the Metro,” he said. “Below ground, travelling on the trains, no one has special treatment and everyone can journey to their destinations equally and without distinction.”

The UN Human Rights office intends issuing the tickets every June to remind the people of Mexico City that they are all entitled to the full range of human rights.