Action Plan to Combat Racism
27 June 2006
Responding to recommendations made during the 2001 United Nations World
Conference against Racism (WCAR) hosted in Durban, the Department of Justice
and Constitutional Development will from 28 June 2006 embark on a series of
national consultative workshops.
The objective of the workshops is to source information from representatives
and stakeholders of identified sectors to feed to the development of the
National Action Plan. This also forms part of a process towards the development
of the National Action Plan to combat racism, xenophobia and related
intolerances.
One of the programs of actions adopted during the WCAR was that every member
country of the United Nations (UN) must develop the National Action Plan to
combat and eradicate racism, xenophobia and related intolerance in their
respective countries.
In total, thirteen national consultative workshops dealing with various
issues including education, health, law and justice, business, will be held.
Issues that will be tackled during the workshops include amongst others;
identifying the causes of racism and racial discrimination; identifying the
manifestation of racism and xenophobia; developing strategies of eradication
and monitoring mechanism.
The South African government has made enormous progress in promoting and
encouraging the culture of human rights in the country. An exemplar of such a
commitment is the Bill of Rights entrenched in the constitution and the
development of several legal instruments including:
* Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, 1995
* Labour Relation Act, 1995
* Employment Equity Act, 1998
* National Action Plan for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights duly
deposited with the UN on 10 December, 1998
* Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, 2000
For more information on the coming consultative workshops please contacts Ms
Gladys Ramosana Ndou at Tel: (012) 357 8107.
Enquiries:
Leslie Mashokwe
Cell: 083 278 8018
Issued by: Department of Justice and Constitutional Development
27 June 2006
