Talking Points for Mr Volker Turk, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Respecting minority rights as a means of preventing or mitigating the impact of humanitarian crises 3 pm – 6 pm, Thursday 24 November 2016, Room XX Palais des Nations  I'm very pleased that the organizers of this year's Forum have chosen to focus on the topic of protection of minority rights in humanitarian crisis. While most people are generally aware that racial, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities are particularly vulnerable in conflict and other crisis situations (one need only think of Bosnia, of Rwanda, of Iraq, of Myanmar, to name just a few), this heightened vulnerability requires more reflection—and action—today as we're witnessing a period of unprecedented global displacement.  Forced displacement is being fueled by a higher number of internal conflicts and disruptions, including natural disasters, coupled with a failure to solve longstanding crisis situations. We're also witnessing new global migration patterns that are giving rise to racism and xenophobia andrelatedly—nationalism, all of which have the potential to affect minority communities in very serious ways. Advocates of minority rights, including those in this room, have a responsibility to raise our voices and ensure that these trends don't witness a trammeling upon the civil rights of minority groups.  It's of course already the case that members of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities are some of the most vulnerable persons in the conflicts we see around the world. Many of the persons who flee their countries for fear of persecution are members of minority groups. Indeed, the 1951 Convention recognizes this link in its definition of a refugee, which includes persons who flee persecution not only because of their political opinion but also because of their race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group. And the religious or ethnic or other tensions that may have caused the displacement of minorities in the first place can follow them across international borders, where they often live a fragile co-existence as refugees.  The massive displacement that has taken place inside Iraq as a result of the advance of ISIS is one dramatic example of the disproportionate impact such displacement can have on minority groups, as adherents of various Christian denominations as well as the Yazidis, a syncretic religious community, have been terribly affected. Compounding their persecution by ISIS is the historic discrimination that the Yazidis face from the majority Muslim society and government authorities. Yazidi survivors of gender based violence, including forced marriage and rape by ISIS combatants, remain in desperate need of emergency medical treatment, psychosocial support and counselling, but report being shunned by government agencies, leaving humanitarian agencies to try to fill this gap.  Members of minority groups may also face particular challenges in the search for durable solutions, which can include returning to places of origin or alternative settlement elsewhere in the country (in the case of internally displaced persons) or voluntary repatriation or resettlement to a third state once crises have subsided.  For UNHCR, attention to minority rights is critical to our work with all persons of concern: asylum seekers, refugees, the internally displaced, and stateless persons. And this is the case at all stages of a humanitarian crisis – before, during and after. Ensuring that the rights of minorities are respected means finding concrete ways of promoting the principle of non-discrimination at the heart of minority rights.  Today, I want to focus the remainder of my remarks on how this principle can be given real meaning for a "group within a group" that does not tend to receive much attention when we speak about minority rights or minorities in crisis: stateless minorities.  Stateless people are persons who are not recognized as nationals of any State. We estimate that there are at least 10 million such persons globally. This is shocking and counter-intuitive to most people, as most people assume that everyone has a nationality. We tend to speak of statelessness