This date is celebrated annually on March 21 and is called the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. On this day in 1960, police officers killed 69 people during a peaceful demonstration against the apartheid regime’s mandatory passportization of Africans, held in Sharpeville (South Africa).
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted in 1965, defines racial discrimination as any distinction, exclusion, limitation or preference based on grounds of race, colour, descent, national or ethnic origin, aimed at destroying or derogating recognition, use, or exercise on an equal basis of human rights and fundamental freedoms in political, economic, social, cultural or any other areas of public life.
Combating racism is a priority for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The UN has been trying to find an effective approach to solving this problem since its foundation. The norms of the prohibition of racial discrimination are enshrined in all major documents in the field of human rights. This prohibition imposes a number of obligations on states and challenges them to eliminate discrimination in the public and private spheres.
The principle of equality also requires countries to take special measures to eliminate the conditions that cause or help to perpetuate racial discrimination.
