A/HRC/27/68
good practice in the development of national action plans supported by a wide variety of
disaggregated data.
26.
Mirjana Najchevska made a presentation entitled “Youth at risk: racial profiling”.
She highlighted the fact that, in the course of its country visits, the Working Group had
found that, owing to institutionalized racial discrimination, the rate of unemployment for
people of African descent, particularly young people, was above national averages.
Similarly, children and young people of African descent constituted one of the most
vulnerable groups in the countries the Working Group had visited. They experienced
disproportionately low rates of access to good quality education, alarmingly high rates of
violence, including on the part of law enforcement officers, and were too often targeted by
the police, breeding in them anger, frustration and a lack of faith in law enforcement
agencies. She highlighted the need to criminalize racism, address cultural differences in
societies, strengthen international and national commitment and action based on recognition
of the racial aspects of violence and incarceration, prioritize prevention and create
accessible and youth-friendly reporting systems and services.
27.
Suzanne Charles from the Institute of Gender and Development Studies at the
University of the West Indies delivered through videoconference a presentation entitled
“Gender, human rights and education: a Caribbean perspective”. She highlighted various
challenges faced by youth of African descent in the Caribbean, including: differential
access to schooling, particularly at the secondary level and in rural areas, and consequent
differential outputs and outcomes for various groups within the educational system; an
inadequacy of facilities to accommodate students with special needs, such as physically and
mentally challenged students as well as the gifted; the inability of some schools to access
adequate human and physical resources, including appropriately qualified staff, appropriate
technology and suitable space; the prohibitive cost of schooling for a number of parents and
inadequate support in the homes and communities of many students; and the lack of student
engagement, particularly among certain groups, which had led to high levels of attrition and
ultimately, dropout.
28.
During the interactive discussion, NGO representatives asked about the extent of
profiling in prisons, the role of the media in racial profiling, the profiling of children of
African descent, including migrants, who were often subjected to such profiling, and the
risks of data collection being used for racial profiling purposes. In response, Ms.
Najchevska said that there was a risk of the misuse of data, just as any tool could be
misused as a weapon. She said that the use of statistics by the media without in-depth
research risked creating stereotypes. She emphasized the need to take advantage of the
International Decade for People of African Descent to address various State institutions,
among others the judiciary, law enforcement authorities and education authorities, and urge
them to bring about structural changes in relation to the ongoing practice of racial profiling.
She also said that the phenomenon of racial profiling affected a multitude of rights,
including the rights to privacy, freedom of movement, work and education.
29.
Ms. Shepherd asked if there had been any research into the linkages between
structural discrimination, the content of education curricula and the legacy of slavery. In
response, Ms. Charles said that the legacy of slavery persisted in the Caribbean region.
Regrettably, despite comprising the majority of the population in the region, AfroCaribbean people constituted the lower strata of society in many areas, including the
education system. Despite reforms in formal equality in terms of numbers, there had been
no fundamental reshaping of the education system, which had resulted in people of African
descent remaining marginalized in terms of access to education, especially at the secondary
and tertiary levels. The representative of South Africa asked if education was justiciable in
Jamaica and whether there was any ongoing adaptation of the education system to address
the prevalence of structural discrimination. In response, Ms. Charles said that, while she
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