16th UN Forum on Minority Issues 2023 Minorities and Cohesive Societies: Equality, Social Inclusion, and Socio-economic Participation Session 2 – Socio-Economic Empowerment – Jackson-Preece What is socio-economic empowerment and why is it important? • Economic empowerment is the ability of people to access and control the resources and opportunities that enable them to improve their living standards, well-being and dignity • Minority rights facilitate economic empowerment by ensuring that persons belonging to minorities are protected from discrimination, exploitation, and exclusion and that they can participate in decisionmaking processes that affect their lives. Intersectional Approach • An intersectional approach to empowerment is necessary in this context because persons belonging to minorities often face multiple forms of discrimination, exclusion, and vulnerability - for example based on gender, age or migrant/refugee status – that produce additional barriers to their social and economic participation. • In our previous session, we already discussed the importance of specifically empowering minority women and girls • In this session, we are invited to think further about the socioeconomic empowerment of youth, migrants and refugees from minority backgrounds, who also face additional barriers to social and economic participation How do we achieve socio-economic empowerment? • Achieving socio-economic participation for all members of society, including persons belonging to minorities requires equal treatment AND equal opportunities • A necessary first step is comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation to protect persons belonging to minorities from direct and indirect discrimination by both public and private actors in employment, 1