WILPF working against racism.(UN pages)

Three decades of action by the United Nations to end racism and racial discrimination contributed to ending apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s; but racism and racial discrimination worldwide continues and is on the increase in scope and intensity.

The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which the United Nations convened in Durban in 2001, showed how difficult it is for States to agree on the causes of racial discrimination and how to eliminate them.

Nevertheless, the Conference reached a broad consensus on many basic issues, for example, that the cross-Atlantic slave trade was at the root of modern forms of racism and racial discrimination, and that part of the healing was an official acknowledgement of the harm done by those who benefited so much form it, and that compensation was due.

The Conference also recognized that discrimination against migrants and against indigenous peoples, as well as other vulnerable groups had to be combated if the scourge of racism and racial discrimination was to be ended.

However, the Conference and in particular the NGO Forum organized in parallel with the Conference ran into trouble over strong criticisms expressed and manifested by many participants of Israel's policies and practices carried out against the Palestinian people in the territories it has occupied since 1967, often linking it to forms of apartheid worse than those that had been practiced in South Africa. This caused the US and Israel to walk out of the Conference shortly before its closure.

This walkout did not prevent the Conference from developing and adopting the Durban Declaration and Plan of Action, a resounding declaration and a practical program of action which the General Assembly declared to be "a solid foundation for a broad-based consensus for further actions and initiatives towards the total elimination of the scourge of racism ... ...