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The issue of discriminatory application of laws, and discriminatory practices of,
for instance, land grabbing and environmental pollution affecting minorities
leading to marginalisation and growth of ethnic tension ahead of crisis.
Item III. Preventing or mitigating the impact of humanitarian crises on minorities
This session discussed the key factors leading to disproportionate impact of humanitarian
crises on minority groups. Participants examined how conflicts could be avoided through
minority participation in public life, and how disproportionate impacts on minority
communities could be avoided or mitigated through thorough and participative planning
and contingency plans as well as trusted channels of communication with minority
communities. The participants stressed the need to collect accurate information and data
about minority groups to develop plans, including contingency plans. This session also
reflected on the responsibility of all States with regard to reducing the phenomenon of
statelessness, which often disproportionately affects minorities and increases their
vulnerability during crises.
Dr Volker Türk, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, United Nations
Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, warned against racism and
xenophobia and nationalism, arising in relation to new global migration patterns, and
which could affect minority communities in serious ways. He stressed how attention to
minority rights was critical to UNHCR’s work with asylum seekers, refugees,
internally displaced and stateless persons and that UNHCR found concrete ways of
promoting the principle of non-discrimination at the heart of minority rights. He drew
the Forum’s attention to the specific situation of stateless minorities, who in most cases
have become stateless as a result of discrimination on grounds of race, ethnicity,
religion or gender, and find themselves in humanitarian crisis. He reviewed the
existing legal framework to prevent and reduce statelessness, including two UN
conventions, and presented the UNHCR #IBelong Campaign launched in 2014 and
aiming at resolving statelessness following a 10-point Global Action Plan. The focus of
the campaign for the next 2 years will be on “Equal Nationality Rights”, highlighting
the benefits to communities and society as a whole associated with recognizing
stateless minorities as citizens. Welcoming the Human Rights Council resolution on
the right to nationality in June 2016, he also called all UN Special Procedures to draw
more attention to the issue of discrimination in the right to nationality.
Dr Ojot Miru Ojulu, Former OHCHR Minority Fellow, Advocacy officer at the
Lutheran World Federation, drew in his remarks from his personal experience as a
minority in Ethiopia during the Gambella conflict. He first spoke to the importance of
terminology, as the qualification of “humanitarian crises” can sometimes be
discriminatory:
he gave the example of “invisible crises”, affecting minority
communities in a remote region, but not being qualified as such by central authorities. As
a result, the population in such situations may be deprived of adequate humanitarian aid.
In order to prevent such crises, Dr. Ojulu stressed the importance of minorities’
meaningful participation in all decision-making bodies and economic empowerment of
minorities. While Ethiopia’s federal constitution clearly acknowledges self-determination
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