A/HRC/23/56
ensure the inclusion of children of affected communities in schools; and disseminate
general information about the importance of non-discrimination and respect for affected
communities in the entire education system. The Special Rapporteur also encourages States
to enable and improve educational and professional training for Dalit girls and boys so that
they can move to professions of their choice.
V. Contexts impacting on the full enjoyment of the right to
education without discrimination
A.
Racially motivated violence in schools
48.
The Special Rapporteur is of the view that States should not lose sight of the impact
that racism, racial discrimination and intolerance in general have on students or the ways in
which it specifically contributes to hostile environments in schools and educational
institutions in general.
49.
As stated in the Durban Programme of Action, both States and non-governmental
organizations, as well as the private sector in general, should work towards reducing
violence motivated by racism, including by developing specifically targeted educational
materials in order to teach young people the importance of tolerance and respect (para. 74).
50.
Criminal justice and law enforcement responses to racially motivated acts in schools
should be used only in the most serious cases and only as a last resort. The introduction of a
“zero tolerance policy” for minor infractions committed by students leads to the
criminalization of misbehaviour in school, which in practice may contribute to schools
becoming an entry point to the criminal justice system, especially in neighbourhoods where
minorities are overrepresented. Instead of resorting to such drastic measures, schools and
relevant authorities should put stronger emphasis on raising awareness of tolerance and
non-discrimination, and the values of a multicultural society.
B.
Education and conflicts
51.
The dangers of the failure to educate people about human rights in education have
been evident in many situations of conflict, where education has been instrumentalized and
deployed as a tool for ethnic or racial stereotyping. For instance, the Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights in Rwanda described in 1997 how successive Governments of
Rwanda had instrumentalized education in the preparation of genocide:
The schools, for their part, took it upon themselves to develop actual theories of
ethnic differences, based on a number of allegedly scientific data which were
essentially morphological and historiographical. In the first case, the two main
groups can be differentiated by appearance, as the Tutsi are „long‟, whereas the Hutu
are „short‟; the Tutsi are handsome, genuine „black-skinned Europeans‟ while the
Hutu are „ugly‟, genuine „Negroes‟. The fact that the Hutu occupied the country
before the Tutsi makes them indigenous, whereas the Tutsi, as descendants of
Europeans, are invaders. These purportedly scientific data inevitably created a
psychosis of fear and mistrust which gradually became a veritable culture of mutual
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