International Day For The Elimination Of Racial Discrimination

Every year, 21st March, is observed as International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

• The day calls for solidarity against racism and racial discrimination.
• The United Nation General Assembly in October 1966 proclaimed 21st March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, to be commemorated annually.
• On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid pass laws.

Aparthied:

• It was a policy which governed relations between South Africa’s white minority and non-white majority.
• It sanctioned racial segregation, poltical and economic discrimination against non-whites.
• Proclaiming the Day in 1966 which signifies the struggle to end the policy of apartheid in South Africa.
• ‘Youth standing up against racism’

Importance:

• Racial discrimination, beyond being a breach of human rights, has harmful effects on human health and well-being, and risks wider disruptions to social cohesion.
• Racism, also called racialism, the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others.
• The term is also applied to political, economic, or legal institutions and systems that engage in or perpetuate discrimination on the basis of race or otherwise reinforce racial inequalities in wealth and income, education, health care, civil rights, and other areas.

SOURCE:THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MIN