#FightRacism ✊ Today is International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

💫We’d like to take this opportunity to share our success story of denouncing before the United Nations the racial discrimination faced by Isaan people , LGBTIQ+ refugees and asylum seekers, and Indigenous peoples.

❗For the first time ever at any UN human rights review of Thailand, in November 2021, the CERD Committee addressed the everyday discrimination of the Khon Isaan ethnic group including the offensive stereotype of ‘mia farang’ or ‘white foreigner’s wife.’

📑Before Thailand’s CERD review, Manushya Foundation together with partners submitted two community-based joint reports, both of them amplified voices of marginalized communities and informing the CERD Committee about their treatment in Thailand.

❗Emilie Palamy Pradichit, Founder and Executive Director of Manushya Foundation, and ‘Best’ Chitsanupong Nithiwana, Founder and Executive Director of the Young Pride Club (YPC) traveled to Geneva to attend the CERD review, advocate and tell the truth about human rights violations and racial discrimination faced by Thai grassroots communities.

❗❗Our success: during the review, CERD Committee members, particularly the Country Rapporteur Ms. Chung Chinsung and Mr. Yeung Sik Yuen, addressed all of the issues we brought to their attention! They used our data, our evidence, and even our words to denounce discrimination, hate speech, harmful stereotypes, and unequal treatment of many communities in Thailand.

💡The CERD Committee and incorporated all of the critical issues that we raised into the official legally binding outcome of the review: the Concluding Observations. These are legally binding and the Thai Government must implement them!

👉Watch how the CERD Committee addressed racism against Isaan people, including the offensive stereotype of ‘mia farang’.

Youtube Video

#WeAreManyshyan - Equal Human Beings

Read more about our advocacy work before the UN:

• #CEDAW2023: A Year to Reimagine Intersectional Feminism!, 7 February 2023

• Manushya pushes back against corporate capture & abuse at #UNForumBHR!, 9 December 2022

• Joint Civil Society CEDAW Report to inform the List of Issues to be considered by the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, 7 October 2022

• #FightRacism How we denounced racism in Thailand before the UN, 27 June 2022

• #FightRacism ✊ We made it!, 22 February 2022

• Joint Civil Society Shadow Report On The Implementation of ICERD, 25 October 2021

• Thailand’s Third Universal Periodic Review Cycle Thailand #UPR III 2021, 15 October 2021

References:

• Manushya Foundation, #FightRacism How we denounced racism in Thailand before the UN (27 June 2022), available at: https://www.manushyafoundation.org/post/how-we-denounced-racism-in-thailand-before-the-un

• United Nations, CERD/C/THA/CO/4-8, Concluding observations on the combined fourth to eighth reports of Thailand (10 February 2022), available at:https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/concluding-observations/cerdcthaco4-8-concluding-observations-committee-elimination

• United Nations, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/treaty-bodies/cerd

#WhatsHappeningInThailand #HumanRights #CERD #RacialDiscrimination #SaveThaiDemocracy #IndigenousPeoples #IndigenousRights #NoRacism #LocalCommunity #Equality #VoicesOfThailand #Isaanpeople #UnitedNations