SEMINAR URGES LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES TO ENSURE PARTICIPATION OF VULNERABLE GROUPS IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES

Press Release
RD/903

SEMINAR URGES LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES TO ENSURE PARTICIPATION OF VULNERABLE GROUPS IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES

SANTIAGO, 27 October -- The three-day expert seminar held in Santiago, Chile, ended on Friday, 27 October, by urging States in the Latin American and Caribbean region to ensure full and free participation of indigenous peoples, Afro-Latin Americans and other vulnerable groups in all levels of decision- making processes.

Participants in the expert seminar, drawn from high levels of government, national and international organizations and institutions, as well as non-governmental organizations, expressed deep concern about the gap between formal rights and their realization in everyday life. That situation, they noted, posed obstacles to the achievement of substantial equality. They called for empowerment of racially discriminated groups through effective implementation of political, economic, social and cultural rights.

The expert seminar that opened on Wednesday, 25 October, with a keynote address by former Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, a statement from the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Secretary-General of the World Conference against Racism, Mary Robinson, and an intervention by Reynaldo Bajraj, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), has been examining a wide range of issues that focused on economic, social and legal measures to combat racism in the region, with particular reference to vulnerable groups. Proposals for effective remedies against racial discrimination, the role of civil society and government, as well as strengthening human rights capacities for combating racism and intolerance at the national and regional levels were also formulated at the seminar.

The Santiago expert seminar, organized by the World Conference Secretariat/Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in cooperation with ECLAC, was conducted in preparation for the regional preparatory conference scheduled for December this year as part of the series of regional conferences before the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related Intolerance that will be held in Durban, South Africa, from 31 August to 7 September 2001.

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