NGO Report to CERD: Call for Endorsements by 30 June

The Endorsement Draft of the NGO Shadow Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is now available.

The report has been prepared over the last 5 months in consultation with a broad range of community organisations and NGOs in Australia and we hope that it will also be supported by even wider range of organisations and individuals. The more support the better. The report will be presented to the UN in August 2010, when Australia formally appears for review.

The report covers key themes of racial discrimination in Australia including:

  • Gaps in legal framework for protection (ie the need for constitutional protection from racism, limitation of Racial Discrimination Act, gaps in vilification laws and laws protecting from acts of racial hatred)
  • Discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people ( ie the Northern Territory Intervention, suspension of the RDA, inequality in outcomes for health, housing, education and life expectancy, ongoing issues relating to policing and imprisonment, public space laws and native title)
  • Discrimination against asylum seekers, refugees and non-citizens (ie mandatory detention, offshore processings, indefinite detention of stateless people, the asylum 'freeze, health rights)
  • Discrimination against migrant and CALD communities (ie in accessing employment and culturally specific services, increased hostility and sometimes violence in community, policing young African communities)
  • The impact of counter-terror laws on primarily Somali, Kurd and other Muslim Communities (ie the effect of proscribing organisations, increased policing of communities)

If you wish to endorse the report, or part of it, please email Emily Howie (emily.howie@hrlrc.org.au) and Louise Edwards (Louise_Edwards@clc.net.au) by no later than Wednesday 30 June 2010.  The report will be sent to Geneva the following day.

Please also feel free to distribute the report throughout your networks as we are keen for this report be supported by as broad an NGO coalition as possible.

Also, please note that some minor formatting changes are still required to the report, but no substantive changes are able to be made at this late stage.

MichelleBennettHuman Rights Law & Institutions