A/HRC/59/62 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 52/36 and contains an exploration of the topic of intersectionality from a racial justice perspective. 2. To inform the report, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Ashwini K.P., issued a call for submissions addressed to States Members of the United Nations and other stakeholders, including civil society organizations, international organizations and national human rights institutions.1 The Special Rapporteur extends her sincere gratitude to all Member States and other stakeholders who submitted information. II. Intersectionality from a racial justice perspective 3. As outlined in her report to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-third session, the adoption of an intersectional approach to identifying and addressing contemporary forms of racism and racial discrimination is a central part of her vision for her tenure as Special Rapporteur.2 The present report reflects this strategic focus. In it, the Special Rapporteur will highlight the importance of an intersectional approach to the understanding and eradication of all contemporary forms of racism and racial discrimination, including systemic racism. A. Intersectionality 4. The concept of intersectionality emerged from the work of Black feminists in the United States of America.3 It emerged as a powerful critique of the mainstream feminist approach that negated the element of race in analysing discrimination and exclusion. Feminist and critical race scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw first articulated the term “intersectionality” in 1989 to describe the mutually compounding impact of race and gender-based discrimination on Black women.4 She highlighted how an approach whereby discrimination tended to be understood and codified in law as a single-axis experience, defined by membership of one particular group, was commonplace. She articulated how such an essentialist approach made the sum and complexity of the experiences of Black women, who sat at the intersection between race and gender, invisible. Taking such an approach “erases Black women in the conceptualization, identification and remediation of race and sex discrimination by limiting inquiry to the experiences of otherwise-privileged members of the group”.5 Her work addresses how this contributes to the marginalization of Black women in feminist theory and anti-racist politics and highlights the importance of looking at differences in the experiences of members of the same group, recognizing that the lived experiences of and discrimination and oppression faced by Black women are diverse and fundamentally different from what is experienced by white women and Black men. She asserts that, for Black women, “the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism”.6 The racism and discrimination faced by Black women cannot 1 2 3 4 5 6 2 See https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-input-intersectionality-racial-justiceperspective. A/HRC/53/60, para. 44. See, for example, Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color”, Stanford Law Review, vol. 43, No. 6 (July, 1991); bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (Boston, United States, South End Press, 1982); bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston, United States, South End Press, 1984); and Combahee River Collective, “The Combahee River Collective statement, 1977”. Crenshaw, “Mapping the margins”. Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics” (University of Chicago Legal Forum, vol. 1989, No. 1). Ibid. GE.25-07755