A/HRC/42/59 30. The third presenter on the panel, Pastor Elias Murillo Martínez, a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, also explored the disconnect between the size of populations of people of African descent in the Americas and their lack of representation in government. There was a need for more representation, as the path to justice required people of African descent to enter public life and hold positions of authority in public office. Recognizing special measures was one way of increasing the representation of people of African descent in government, but there was also a need for elected officials of African descent to transcend parties and even nation States and come together to address social and economic deficits plaguing communities of people of African descent. 31. During the interactive discussion, Ms. Day asked Mr. Reid if there was an estimate for the economic value of exploitation during the period of his research in the Caribbean. Mr. Reid said there was literature that detailed what profits individuals and families made from chattel enslavement and the trade in enslaved persons. Verene Shepherd, a Member of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, asked Mr. Reid if there had been opportunities during the Working Group’s country visit to present data, similar to his own, to interested parties. Mr. Reid said that the data were largely derived from three Caribbean countries: Dominica, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Mr. Balcerzak asked Mr. Freire if Latin America was likely to be the best region when it came to data collection in terms of people of African descent. Mr. Freire replied that Latin America and the Caribbean was a data rich region, while pointing out that identity variables often changed among populations from year to year since censuses were voluntary and based on selfidentification. The representative of Uruguay expressed the commitment of Uruguay to bridging existing gaps and improving socioeconomic indicators as part of efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda. The representative of Brazil stated that Brazil was committed to collecting aggregated and disaggregated data on people of African descent. 32. The third panel focused on the human rights situation in Europe. Mr. Balcerzak gave a presentation on the lack of data availability on people of African descent on the European continent. Owing to historical injustices by past totalitarian European Governments, it was difficult for many European States to willingly collect data on ethnic or racial groupings. That lack of data collection nevertheless contributed to the invisibility of people of African descent, resulting in an enhanced risk of racial injustice and discrimination along with disadvantaging them in terms of enjoying their human rights. Examining several countries from the European Union and their consistent lack of data collection, Mr. Balcerzak highlighted the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its policy of data collection based on ethnic and racial self-identification. As a result of that disaggregated data, the United Kingdom was able to formulate and implement policies to address various issues identified through the data. 33. The second speaker on the panel, Marcus Bell, Director of the Race Disparity Unit of the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom, recognized the vast amount of data collected on ethnic and racial minorities in the United Kingdom, simultaneously acknowledging the lack of full utilization of that data. As a result, the United Kingdom had set up a Race Disparity Audit with the goal of uncovering uncomfortable truths about racial disparity. One of the primary discoveries made through the audit had been that ethnic minorities were worse off than white people in the United Kingdom. The data collected also showed that other factors, such as geographical location, might play a role in disparities faced by minorities. People of African descent might be doing very poorly in one geographical area, while simultaneously doing well in another. Data collection had resulted in government policy changes in the areas of labour, addressing the pay gap and disparities in the prison system. 34. Rossalina Latcheva, from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, presented the Agency’s report, Being Black in the EU. There were fundamental obstacles to obtaining racial or ethnic data on people of African descent in the European Union. At the same time, data on first and second generation people of African descent showed that people of African descent perceived significant amounts of discrimination based primarily on their skin colour. The data also indicated that people of African descent were more likely to report acts of discrimination when they stayed longer in a country or if they had a 8