Comunidade Bahá'í do Brasil apresenta pronunciamento verbal durante Conferência Regional de Revisão de Durban

[In Portuguese] Thank you Mr. Chair. My name is Mary Aune and I represent the Bahá'í Community of Brazil. I would like to appologize for delivering this statement in English, but it is based on a document we submitted in English language in response to the questionnaire sent by UN Geneva in preparation to this Conference. We believe it can contribute with the discussions in this session, and therefore have decided to share it.

[In English] The implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action is still far behind. Since 2001, some processes have been initiated both at the governmental and non-gevernmental levels, but in concrete terms, there is still difficulty on the part of governments and civil society to actually combat all forms of discrimination and racism.

Xenophobia in Brazil is considered as in far distance. However, as migrants start occuping job positions that used to belong to Brazilians, this starts to be a bigger issue. This is already a reality, for example, in the state of São Paulo in the same way as it is growing in every part of the world while globalization provides opportunities for people to migrate, or as they are forced by several conditions to leave their homeland. It is strongly related to economic factors, but brings alive several prejudices that relate to the origin of those people.

Racism in our country is still considered by a large percentage of the population as irrelevant in the face of social discrimination, for example. But the structure of society is designed in a way that does not allow a person to transit between social categories. By not recognizing its existance, Brazilian society denies the need to address it in a proper way, neglecting the black population's right to have the same rights as non-blacks. Some policies have been designed and implemented at the national and local levels, but most of the programmes are still looking at study cases. Moreover, these programmes do not address the matter in a propper fashion because this would require that the elites abandon their own privileges to see that less favoured people could have access to them. In terms of affirmative actions, first and clear manifestations of racism are now being observed as the quotas sistem is being offered in federal universities: as blacks start taking the places which traditionally were occupied by whites, expressions of disagreement are being observed. What used to be considered solidarity to the cause of the promotion of the blacks now gives way to clear manifestation of discomfort towards the advancement in posts that were previously occupied by whites.

Religious intolerance is also a main issue, as African-Brazilian religions are constantly suffering agressions by pentecostal individuals, and even institutions. These include not only defamation, but also physical and moral harrasment, destruction and closure of sites and other forms of intolerance. Several expressions of rage and intolerance have been recently observed against jews through graffiti on temples walls or through physical assaults to blacks and homossexuals in the name of the so-called white supremacy.

In terms of concrete measures and initiatives for combating and eliminating all manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, there are some that deserve to be mentioned: quotas have been established for black students at Brazilian federal universities, and research scolarships have been granted to some of these students; examinations for public service have begun to include affirmative actions as well, but in a smaller scale; public servants in some areas are beginning to be trained on racial equality and human rights in order to shift the current “whiteness” of public offices; some private companies have adopted similar policies; a Special Secretariat was created under the aegys of the Presidency of the Republic to deal with issues related to the promotion of racial equality (SEPPIR); some lawsuits have been filled recently under the law that criminalizes rascim; racism on the Internet has started to be investigated by the Public Prosecuter's Office; among others.

Still, it should be noted that Durban follow-up mechanisms are usually not clearly observed in Brazil, except during the process of this conference. Other follow-up mehanisms do not have a direct impact in the country, as the government receives the calls but seldom acts upon them.

Follow-up mechanisms can be considered suitable as long as they receive proper subsidies (such as personell, budget, authonomy). Worldwide, one of the main issues is that many countries still do not recognize the importance of the issue of the promotion of equality, which falls behind if compared with others. More budget and experts should be allocated; campaigns must be organized as to sensitize member-states and educate their populations towards the recognition of the existence of racism and the need to understand the principle of unity of human kind.

Educational processes must be initiated at once and at all levels to enable people to understand the need to overcome racism and discrimination. As for the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, the matter must become a priority in governmental agendas, and budget and political will have to be put into it. Social activism is very important, and means to support civil society in order to better impose a social control over govenrmental actions is needed.

Educating school professionals is one of the actions that prove to have success both in the short and the long run, and I would like to mention two initiatives to illustrate this. The Brazilian National Forum on Human Rights Education developed a project entitled Unidade na Diversidade (Unity in Diversity) which provides educators with materials that deal with racial issues (as well as gender) inside the school environment. Training sessions have been organized, and there is a lot of sharing between participants. Games have been developed to show the importance of African culture, the African contributions to science and society and its influences towards Brazilian culture and society as a whole. The project can be accessed through http://www.unidadenadiversidade.org.br. Ágere Cooperação em Advocay has promoted a course on the history of Africa and of Afrobrazilian culture to more than 10 thousand educators. More information on this project can be found at http://www.agere.org.br.

There are several other initiatives that could be mentioned, but I thank you now for your time in the hope that these can be shared in other opportunities in the near future.

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