A/HRC/46/44 I. Introduction In July 2020, the Human Rights Council adopted its resolution 43/8 on the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. In that resolution, the Council requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue to present a report to it annually. The world has rarely experienced a simultaneous, global shock as complex as COVID-19. Today’s multifaceted health crisis and its associated economic consequences have unmasked the strong link between ethnicity, socioeconomic status and health outcomes.1 COVID-19 has had a broad range of disproportionate and adverse impacts upon national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minority communities. To guide the human rights response to the crisis, OHCHR issued detailed guidance regarding the impact of COVID-19 on minorities, emergency measures, civic space, and women and racial discrimination, among other topics.2 The Human Rights Council, at its forty-third session, held an “urgent debate on current racially inspired human rights violations, systemic racism, police brutality against people of African descent and violence against peaceful protests”. Anti-racism protests in many countries, triggered by the killing of George Floyd in May 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States of America, were a sign of global outrage against racism, inequality and discrimination. During the reporting period, the High Commissioner highlighted the glaringly disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on racial and ethnic minorities, including people of African descent, and the way in which the pandemic has exposed alarming inequalities within societies.3 II. Activities of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and recent developments in human rights bodies and mechanisms, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic A. Data collection Wherever they exist, disaggregated data indicate that members of minorities both are more likely to die of COVID-19 and are hit the hardest by its socioeconomic consequences, revealing substantial, structural inequalities in society.4 Some minority groups have suffered death rates several times higher than those of other groups during the pandemic.5 In June 2020, OHCHR issued a guidance note on the impact of COVID-19 on minorities. This guidance note gave an overview of trends, promising practices and recommendations for action by Member States – which included gathering research and publishing data on testing, cases and deaths related to COVID-19, disaggregated by sex, age, racial or ethnic origin and other status; and developing evidence-based policies driven by such data, specifically targeting those most in need. 1 2 3 4 5 2 See www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=26232&LangID=E. See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/COVID-19.aspx. See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25916&LangID=E. In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, death rates from COVID-19 in England were higher for black and Asian ethnic groups than for white ethnic groups. The Office for National Statistics has examined data and reported that persons of black African or black Caribbean ethnicity are 1.9 times more likely to die due to COVID-19; males of Bangladeshi or Pakistani ethnicity are 1.8 times more likely to die, and females of Bangladeshi or Pakistani ethnicity are 1.6 times more likely to die. All excess deaths are compared to those of persons of white British ethnicity. See “Beyond the data: understanding the impact of COVID-19 on BAME groups”, Public Health England, June 2020. See www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Minorities/OHCHRGuidance_COVID19_Minorities Rights.pdf.