 But it's also special because we have also colleagues from the UN network on the prevention of racism and protection of minorities today with us and also very distinguished speakers, so I think very, very interesting session is ahead of us. I will not take much of the time, but just remind us all if you can please stay on mute if you are not speaking to maintain the quality connection and sound and please do use the chat so that we get most of this session. We can exchange if you have some ideas questions, of course, we will be constantly monitoring the chat. So post it there and you can also share some examples from your experience or the operations where you are working now. So if we can move to the next slide here we see the proposed agenda. We will hear from Bruno Donat, the global coordinator of mine action area of responsibility, who will give us the opening to this webinar. And thanks again for joining us from from your mission in Palestine, very much appreciated. We will then continue with the panel. We have with us Claude Khan, who is working with OHCHR and also the chair of the UN network on prevention of racism and protection of minorities, as well as Maria Joseph Aisi from the third committee. And finally, Madeline Gardley, who is the head of protection of policy and legal advice section in the division of international protection and UNHCR. We will hear very complimentary perspectives and I would say angles how we can prevent and respond and consider issues related to racism in our work. And we will open up for questions and answers, of course, so get ready, prepare your questions you may have for our distinguished guests. And we hope that at the end of this event, we will also have a set of concrete recommendations or suggested points to further explore going forward on this key and a very crucial topic. So let me stop here and give the floor to Bruno. As I mentioned, Bruno is now on a mission, but the connection seems to be very good. And if you can please open our event over to you, Bruno. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm very honored to have been chosen to open this very, very important, I would say, event and on topic, how to tackle racism and related intolerance in the context of internal displacement. As soon as I start, I'm saying I am not either the specialist on internal displacement and I'm not the specialist on racism or intolerance. However, I'm a fellow colleague and I've worked a bit on all of those matters. I am today accompanied by my colleague, Rosanna Schieta, if you can show your face because I can't see anybody right now and I'm hoping from time to time you let me know that my connection is still okay. They make sure I have the best internet for the next 15 minutes. Special thanks of course to Valerie and the Global Protection Cluster on Human Rights Engagement Tasking for inviting me. I'm not sure why, but I'm happy to be here. So I think I will start by uploading the initiative because this discussion on this topic is important to shed light, you know, to have some concrete steps that can be taken by clusters. Around the world, vegan protection and other matters to fight racism and perhaps to advocate or ensure non-discrimination for all internally displaced persons. I really hope based on what I heard before that this webinar will raise further awareness and could be replicated down the road with relevance and stakeholders. In terms of introducing the topic, some of you may have heard me before or not. As I was introduced, I'm the global coordinator within the Mine Action AWAR of the GPC. Introducing the topic for me is we have to be honest with ourselves. We should, if it's not too blunt, avoid being too ambiguous or naive or beat around the bush. That's how I introduce the topic. Now let me do the official quote as stated by my boss, some of you are, it's your boss, current secretary general. He says racism is the deeply rooted global evil. I'm quoting him, which perpetuates inequality, oppression and marginalization. So we see racism in many places, especially of those coming from certain regions, and we see the injustices. So I set the scene. So in the context from what I know I've done a little bit of homework, in the context of internal displacement, sometimes it can be racism, xenophobia, various forms of intersecting forms of discrimination that cause people to flee each other from their homes and are forced to be IDPs. And I'm not using force in a, I'm using it in a careful manner. You know, in some places racial discrimination is one of the main causes of internal displacement. And then folks are forced to leave their homes and preventing sometimes their right to return. And then we can expand the conversation whether it is internal displacement or qualify if you cross the border as a refugee. That's another conversation. In some cases, UN national staff are prohibited the same rights of international staff. And you would have followed the news sometimes humanitarian aid is not permitted to enter in certain places. And oftentimes IDPs are stereotyped in national and often international media that even affects their basic human rights. Now that being said, over the last months, years or year, there has been some progress in addressing racial discrimination, especially thanks, unfortunately to what had happened in the US with George Floyd. And of course, when we look at data that is available, I don't know the specifics of all the data on internal displacement. We know there's a long way to go. So I think your webinar is so timely because we need to ride on this wave. Now, perhaps I was invited because they know that I'm one of those little champions of equality, diversity and inclusion. And I think given we are speaking about it, one place to start prior to going into our specialty zone would be to look at our workplace culture. So we are aware, I hope you're aware, there's been some difficult conversations about racial equality or equity. And I myself, together with Rosanna, opened it to some public fora to talk about racial equity. I think it's called in the United Nations and beyond. Now, I have to tell you, this is not an easy ride. We even have in the workplace culture our own colleagues challenging what we are asking about. I'm not a specialist, but some folks would come back and say, no, no, no, there's no racism because we are one big human race, one family. Another challenge I get in terms of workplace culture is, oh, it's not racism because it's nationality, the UN, we measure nationality. But almost thank God when we raised it, the official, internal at least, UN definition was racism includes prejudice, voluntary or involuntary. I don't know the exact quote, maybe Rosanna can throw that quote. I'm ad-libbing right now, if it's not obvious, in how the UN ombudsman went in the context of workplace culture to define how we talk about it. Racism which includes nationality. So racial discrimination and unconscious bias, I like to put a little bracket, unconscious and conscious bias can also affect our work in supporting the affected populations. So as all of us, I'm assuming here are professionals who are working in the humanitarian sector. Sometimes we need to dig a bit deeper to have this type of conversations that you're having in this webinar and to look into where are some vulnerable points. To look at some inequities, inequalities, including race and nationalities that affect us all. Because that's our place of work, our culture that we bring to what we need to do. So at least, I'm assuming most of you know, from the shop I'm in, in the United Nations, you know the Secretary General recognises that we are not immune from the scourge of racism. And he has a task force on addressing racism and promoting it's called dignity for all in the UN. That should soon release, it was meant to be September, the strategic action plan with some specific recommendations. Again, we are a huge body and it's like a huge shift, difficult to move. When we were discussing, as I share with you as you dig in your own topic, one little area would be it is so important when you go through your discussions. Sometimes to do recording, collecting and analysing both qualitative and quantitative data. As this will help you raise awareness, whether it is through dialogues, engage and whether you will start to draft some guidelines on equality, diversity and racial inclusion. I applaud your initiative again because it is so timely and to address racism in your area, as well as beyond, I think in line with the convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. I will not talk too much about what we do, but perhaps I will give you, riding on an example of colleagues, a positive example, where our colleagues in Colombia, where they explain to us that internal displacement has disproportionately impacted indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, so they've had that as data, they've studied it, they've analysed it, and when they have done protection and humanitarian interventions, those same groups have been prioritised. So I think it's a good way to identify how the difficult conversations acknowledge and take action. So while I don't have amazing, super wise words to tell you, we, though without discrimination, the IDP as a person suffers already a lot. You, that is why I'm always praising you, Valerian team, should do everything possible to alleviate their suffering and not to remove that extra layer of harm. That's where I think we know this is being repeated to us at ETERM, try to get this do no harm approach, so that when you implement your activities or initiative, you are able to really gear the future. Again, if there were a key message to leave you as I conclude these opening remarks, I ask you as fellow human beings to not be on the ambiguity language or the naivete, advocate for what you believe in and carry on that torch to shed some light for the future, and oftentimes it starts with little discussions and webinars and then later the network. Voila, I conclude my remarks and I really wish you a very good and productive session. I will not be able to stay. I need to go back to the mission, but I thought I would take a few minutes from Gaza and other places. But now I'm literally in Gaza in Palestine and thank you very much and Rosana will stay and Rosana will somehow represent me in case there are questions. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much Bruno and I see some applause coming your way in case you cannot see it. And for transmitting us this very, very powerful words and very honest, very frank and also highlighting the link that if we want to better serve displaced persons, first we need to look inwards and it's all interconnected and plays together. So I believe you have really set our conversation very well for today. It's just a beginning for us. It's our first discussion on the topic. I'm sure it's not the last one. We will need to have many of those and different initiatives to follow eventually, but thank you again for all what you do in this area and for being available today during your field mission as well. Thank you. Thank you Bruno. Very good excellent colleagues and this leads us actually to start with our panel and we have Claude Kann online to get us started. So without any delay over to you Claude. Hi and thanks for having me. I'm outside and I very much hope the background noise isn't a problem. Can you hear me? Okay, super. So with the limited time I thought I would just try to do two things to be useful. The first one is just to talk a little bit about the network, the UN network against racial discrimination and and on protection of minorities. And then just to talk about one work from the field that I was involved in and I see we have Marie Joseph online it's it resulted in a third complaint. So it's hopefully a good segue to the secretary saying some words as well. The network was was founded in 2012 at the initiative of the previous secretary general Ban Ki-moon. It was given a mandate that basically was to try to help UN agencies work together to address racial discrimination and protection of minorities. It was given a work plan at that time that led up to around 2014. It did its work I think fairly diligently and then following 2014 it became relatively dormant. Then basically in in the events around George Floyd and the global outpouring of solidarity with Black Lives Matter in the United States and elsewhere supporting other minorities. Many agencies far and wide began to realize that they were there was what was called a social ask coming from the wider public that we needed to do much more on racial discrimination and protection of minorities than we were doing to date. And so since then I think we've seen not all but many UN agencies trying to think about seriously about both internally and externally how they will strengthen their work to address racial discrimination and protection of minorities. The largest sort of main work of our product of last year was an effort to provide guidance to UN teams in the field. And this is a document really a 20 page document which is five or six questions set pages of questions around different themes that is intended to help UN teams in the field country teams humanitarian teams groups such as yourself. Ask and identify questions related to the situation of minorities and and the situation of racial discrimination where they are working with a view to developing better programming to address these issues and Peter has just put the document on screen. It begins with a short introduction. It has a first page that's basically for leadership to help the you know the heads of agencies and teams in the field. Think about the higher level and then it has around five or six pages of questions for the technical level that are intended to help again. Basically following the thematic structure of the International Convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination to walk through what are different rights and different areas where you and programming might might be strengthened to address racial discrimination. That's the page area approximately six to 10 and then following that there are sources and guidance around each of those areas. The main background framework is the ICERD Convention the International Convention on the elimination of racial discrimination, as well as two kind of, let's say auxiliary sets of commitments. One is the 1992 UN minorities declaration, which sets out the rights of national ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, and the second one being the Durban Declaration on and plan of action which, you know, implements the commitments made at the World Conference against racism in 2001. So I just mentioned that to you because I think it is also helpful for those of you in this conversation who are thinking about how to strengthen our programming in these areas as concerns internally displace people. It's really meant to simply to help you and staff. Walk through the facts that are in front of them and think seriously about the law and the legal underpinnings that can strengthen the policy work. It doesn't have any, you know, miraculous answers. It's basically to help you have a tool that you can look in detail at the different areas that may be facing a complex community and a complex problem, such as internal displacement, and think seriously about addressing racial discrimination issues in them. I guess the Valerie and Peter can make available the document and and we're very happy to provide additional resources if you would like to have them. We also welcome anyone who wants to join the network. There are around 200 UN staff now in the network. And if you would like to be one of those you would be receiving emails on average around once a week. And please let Valerie know she'll send them on and we'll we'll include you in the list. That's one thing I and then I wanted to just really use. Do I have two more minutes, three more minutes. Is that okay. Okay, I just thought I would tell one experience from the field on strengthening documentation of racial discrimination. We had a pre webinar discussion. And it was pointed out that really the these issues related to internal displacement, frequently involved, you know what you might call sort of intimate intimate strangers in in in a particular context they're not refugees coming from far away countries in need need of support in adjusting to life in a new place. They're more likely people who are known to the majority communities and they face, you know, the kinds of stigma discrimination and negative sentiments that may already be embedded in in a society and may in fact be a component of the kinds of forces that have caused their displacement in the first place. You may want to have a look at a complaint brought to the Committee on the elimination of racial discrimination by someone called Grigori Zapescu. It's a case concerning the Republic of Moldova. And it was done using the methodology called testing to prove racial to prove discrimination. Testing is a mode of proceeding that has been developed by civil society organizations and the UN and courts and litigators worldwide to document discrimination. With, you know, the different treatment that is frequently very evident and present in front of people, and yet very hard to prove, because denied wherever it is existing. What testing basically does is a tester a testing exercise sends to identically or some very similarly situated pairs of testers in to document differences of treatment. So this could be into a job application process or for flat rental or into a hospital context or into schooling. It's harder to do in schooling. It's easier to do in in job job search and and housing housing availability scenarios. It's been done with things as basic as taxi services. It can be used in restaurants and bars. And the idea is you said in one control group, someone from the majority community, usually a pair of people from the majority community and then to similarly dressed similarly aged people from the group that you're testing in this case from let's say an ethnic group that is living in internal displacement. And then the documentation becomes how are they treated. What, what are the differences and similarities in what happens when they, when they apply. In this Pescu case, he was a Romani man from Moldova who applied for a job at a fast food restaurant. And he listed in his job application that he spoke Romani, he didn't list his ethnicity but he, he said that he's put that was one of his, his languages. And he was not called back for an interview. He was asked only a series of very cursory questions. And he was basically not then not given the job. And a very similar person from the Moldova majority, who, you know, who was his age and, and very similar to him was called back for a detailed interview and, and, and the treatment, which they were able to record by, by listing all of this evidence, what ultimately became a complaint to the, the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination. I just mentioned this because you can structure programming around this. If you're struggling to find data to, to gather evidence or gather materials which, which show patterns of discrimination in a society, these are among the techniques that can be used in order to do documentation work of these forces. And in the context that we've frequently find ourselves where people say, you know, there's no data, there's no information, there's no, we don't have the material to show that these things that there are these different patterns and practices of discrimination testing is a very useful methodology for that. I will stop there. Any questions are welcome. I'm sitting outside so I can't post my email address into the into the chat chain but Valery certainly is welcome to we welcome direct questions or one sent through Peter and Valery and yeah, over. Thanks so much, Claude, and I'm sure there will be definitely questions coming your way in a few moments as well. I believe the checklist you you present in and Peter put it also in the chat is a very useful tool. It has been developed by UN agencies but we have also a lot of colleagues from NGOs on the call. I just want to draw the attention to this tool because I believe that it's valid and can be adjusted contextualize basically to any context in which we work. And it can be as a reference tool to check where are we, what should we be doing, are we taking those aspects enough into consideration in our planning in our monitoring in our follow up evaluations, etc. So I would just like to attract attention to it. Definitely if you are interested to know more about the network we we will channel also the information to Claude. It's a very dynamic platform and things also Claude for providing us with a very concrete example from the field, how you have demonstrated cases of racial discrimination. It's also very useful and you created a very nice bridge with our next speaker with Maria Joseph from the third committee and I will give you now the floor Maria Joseph to take us forward on this topic over to you. I think you're on mute. Yes, do hear me now. Super. Yes, thank you. I'm very grateful for inviting me to join this webinar, which I really find very important, you know, as I think that the discrimination against IDPs is sometimes a little bit overshadowed by discrimination against other categories. I also want to greet our colleagues who made themselves available to attend this webinar. My intervention has two parts. So the first one I will speak a little bit quickly about the third and then I will move to talk on the third and the protection of the IDPs. So I will just say a few words on third because I'm not sure that everyone is familiar with that committee. So the third committee has been created by the international conversion against all forms of racial discrimination that I invite all of you, you know, to look at and to use as a tool for advocacy. And is mandate is main mandate is to ensure the monitoring of state compliance with TD obligations through different procedures. And the first one, which in my view is one of the most important event. The most important I would say is the reporting procedure according to which third party submit normally every two, every two, every two years according to the convention but this has been a standard little bit by the committee. They submit to the committee report on the measures that they are taking in order to implement the seven articles of the convention, the main articles of the convention, the substantive article of the conventions. So this is really done usually through dialogue with the delegations that come to Geneva and discuss with the committee on various issues that have been put to the committee. And among these issues, we, the committee usually address the right of the protection, the right of refugees, as well as the right of IDPs. And the result, the outcome of this dialogue is what we call the conclusion of the sessions in particular the recommendations that are made by the committee to the state party, you know, to guide the state party on how it should give effect to the different, to the different provision of the convention. The second would say activity on mandate of the committee is to examine the individual complaints that either individuals or group of individuals could submit to the to the committee provider that the state party in question has accepted the competence of the committee to deal with this kind of individual individual communications. And so IDPs, for example, I have DPs that find that their rights have been violated could submit claims before before the individual claims before the committee help by that, for example, by non governmental organizations. And the third one, perhaps I will skip it, the third one is normally what we call interstate complaints, you've regarded interpretation or the application of the convention. For now the committee has only received three interstate communications. So it's not, it's not a procedure that is often used by states. And the fourth one is what we call the general recommendations and have tried to forward to you the general recommendation 22 adopted by the committee 1996 on refugees and an IDPs. The general recommendations are guiding tools that are adopted by the committee. In order to assist, assist the state to firstly understand different provision of the committee, the content of the provision of the committee, the scope and so on, and then help this state to better implement the provision of the convention. As I said, the general recommendation on refugee and IDPs was adopted by the committee in 1996. It is not, it is old, but it's not updated. And so I will come, I will come now to the, to the search and the protection of the IDPs, which is my second part. Firstly, I would like to say that third considers IDPs, along with other categories of individuals, such as migrants, refugees, minorities, people of African descent, indigenous people. As groups of group of people we should, we deserve a specific protection of the convention because of their vulnerability to racial discrimination and xenophobia. And for that the committee has adopted a number of general recommendation in order to lay out the different rights that these people, the different rights that these different categories should be protected on the, beyond the general protection that the committee, the convention offers to all of us. And this is really important when we come to the IDPs in particular, IDPs who belong to ethnic or ethnic religious minority or to the Roma minority. I have to say that all these categories that I have, I have talked about are not mentioned in the, in the, in the asset convention. So this is really the interpretation that the committee has made of the, of the, of the convention, which is laying out, laying out throughout the jurisprudence of the committee in particular, the jurisprudence stemming from the work of the committee on state reports. Through 1993, the committee adopted the general recommendation, which outlined the duty by state to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in law forms, and to guarantee the right of everyone, everyone without distension to equality before the law. We forgot to political civil, civil rights, but also economic, social, and cultural rights. This means that IDPs are entitled as everyone to all these rights, civil and political, but also economic, social, and cultural rights, as they are usually, they usually live in the jurisdiction of the state party. And in particular, because they are often nationals of state parties. So for those who are national of the state party, they are entitled fully to all these rights. And for those who are not, this can happen, who are not national of the state party. Of course, they are not entitled to fully to all political, all political rights. The general recommendation refers to the forced depletion of person on the basis of the ethnicity of the ethnicity in the context of conflicts. So it's mean that normally in the general recommendation for the site, I would say what a form of other form of IDPs we're talking about IDPs about for this displacement that can be caused with develop by development project and so on. It's mean that normally this general recommendation does not address this kind of internal displacement. The general recommendation, the general recommendation outline, I would say three or four principles. The first one is the free return of IDPs to their home. So the state party should ensure that IDPs who would like to return to their home that they can do it on the safe conditions. The state party also have the obligation to ensure that the return of displacement person is voluntary. And then IDPs after their return to their home of origins, they have the right to be restored to their property that have been taken to them, or if this is not possible to be compensated. This is the famous, that you know, restitution or compensation. And the fourth one is that displaced person have also after their return to their homes of origin the right to participate fully and equally in public affairs at all levels and to have equal access to public services and to receive rehabilitation assistance. So the committee has applied this in a number of computing observations and recommendations. For example, in the recommendation made to Bosnia as a governor, the committee has raised the issue of returning which were facing difficulties regarding their integration into the society. And they were also facing obstacles in accessing the labor market and also social benefits. The committee did the same in computing observations regarding Colombia. That was in particular about the land restitution to IDPs, Colombian IDPs, most of them were either people of African descent or indigenous people. And the committee did so again, regard to the local reintegration of IDPs in Ukraine. But the committee is not limited to this. The committee has gone a little bit beyond this general recommendation in recommending states. Finally, first in rising concern and recommending state about issue of direct or indirect discrimination against IDPs in accessing economic, social and cultural rights, such as main housing, water and sanitation, adequate food, healthcare services, on equal footing with the orders and the committee also warned about the lack of inclusion of IDPs into the society or the limited freedom of movement of IDPs in conflict and post-conflict situation. We have seen this in Iraq and also in Ukraine where some IDPs were banned by local authorities to access this part of the territories. And the committee has reiterated the fact that the state party should promote and protect the freedom of movement of all IDPs in all part of the territory. So another thing which is very important in the recommendation of the committee is the collection of data. The collection of data regarding the IDPs for the committee are very important because they permit not only the state party but also the committee to evaluate how IDPs enjoy their rights as they are protected under the convention. Of course, these jurisprudence needs to be standard and I think that as the committee will continue to review states, the committee will make some progress in the jurisprudence regarding the protection of IDPs. The final thing before I conclude that I would like to say, perhaps actions that could be taken by all of us in order to promote the protection, firstly to promote the right of IDPs and also to try to protect the right of IDPs. The first one is really to promote the right of IDPs and advocate for them before national authorities to make them known to the population, to engage states and other stakeholders to promote also tolerance and understanding among populations where racial discrimination is directed against IDPs. To promote IDPs rights among their own population because IDPs should also be aware of their own rights and how to defend their rights. And above the remedies that are available to them in case they are right. At the international level, I think all of us, we have a lot of avenues, but we forgot to say that we should use the existing mechanism in order to promote and to defend the right of IDPs in particular in situations where they are really at stake. And for example, for search, we could use for other committees, we could do the reporting procedure, which means that we could bring to the attention of the committee the situation of IDPs where it comes to that specific state party is reviewed by the committee so that the committee could raise this issue during the dialogue with that state party and make the recommendation. You could also use the third early warning and urgent action procedure, which for him for situation that require immediate attention so that committee could trigger his this procedure and make either a statement or engage in a dialogue with the state party. The final thing is that, of course, I think that working in a coordinating manner, coordinated efforts among different agencies, it is what also we are doing and include has talked a little bit about the Russian discrimination network on the right of minorities. And so I think this is a kind of initiative that are really important to together, you know, bring our energies in order to promote and defend the right of IDPs. I will stop there and of course get familiar with the convention. Thank you. Thank you, Maria Josef. It's always so inspiring to hear such an overview and I learned so much from what you share with us today and it always triggers me to reflect more how little usually us as humanitarian actors we use the human rights mechanisms and its potential and the full scope. So I hope a call for all of us to be more strategic in that regard and thank you very much for the overview you gave us. Peter was posting the different documents in the chat as you were speaking so colleagues you can access them there. And now we were supposed to move to our last speaker, Madeleine garlic from UNHCR. Unfortunately, she just sent me a message you still caught in a meeting of UNHCR XCOM the executive committee which happens on annual basis negotiations with audience member states so she sends her excuses and she asked me to deliver at least key messages from her speech so with apologies I'm now shifting my hats so moving to the UNHCR and very briefly just to share that of course I iterate what was already also said by Claude, by Maria Josef that the racial discrimination and related intolerance is not only a protection issue while in displacement but oftentimes also really the driver why people leave their homes and it can be a major driver of displacement in different contexts but it can on the other side also hamper the durable solutions so prevent people from coming back home as Maria Josef was just also outlining. The UNHCR has issued few months ago a guide on how to address and prevent racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance Peter please if you could post the link in the chat and the guide is basically a recollection of good practices so we hope that it could be useful it could be useful for different operations to get an inspiration and thank you Emmanuel for pointing out that racism and intolerance is also root cause of statelessness definitely a very good point and it's also part of the guide that Peter will be posting in the chat. But here are some key points that Madeline asked me to share with you that for us as humanitarian actors we have a long way to go still in terms of tackling in our programs, in our production responses, racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia, and it starts from having stronger monitoring and assessments of signs of racism and xenophobia which may impact internally displaced persons. So we have it into our participatory assessments into our monitoring systems, but not to only work on the monitoring but also have in place mechanisms how to deal with cases that may be referred to us. And know what could be referral pathways and ensure that response mechanisms are clear for identified cases and also have system of referral between different actors on the ground including the state authorities as relevant per the context. So what is the current situation is that in of course in all countries unfortunately there is racial discrimination and xenophobia related intolerance. So far in our humanitarian bubble we have been speaking more about social cohesion, intercommunal tension, but we should be also bold if it's racism to call it racism and take appropriate actions to against it. So it also includes to work very closely with affected populations and Marie Joseph, you articulated very well the importance of human rights education. We have on the call Elisa who is really an expert in human rights education and how to empower internally displaced persons to be able to be an active actors actually in that regard, but also make a strong connection with host communities to promote social cohesion and work on the prevention side. We often also tend to work in silos so engaging with faith based organizations, community leaders, of course NGOs but such actors such as parliamentarians is key. We cannot tackle the issue alone and would be unable but be a bit more innovative in terms of who are our key actors with whom we collaborate on this and definitely reiterating the message before in regards to Marie Joseph presentation human rights mechanisms can be a very useful tool in that regard. We can be on the advocacy side highlighting the key issues, amplifying our advocacy messages addressing specific cases in a whole range of area, but we are not yet there in terms of using their full potential. So those are just very brief messages that I'm convened to you on behalf of Madeline, apologies that she could not make it in the end. And I see that Peter also posted in the chat in response to Emmanuel's point, an interesting event which is happening on 21st of October on equality and non-discrimination nationality matters to end statelessness co-organized with OHCHR so you may be interested also in that. So let me finish here and conclude our panel and turn to you dear colleagues and I am aware that this is maybe a new topic to many of us that we reflect on it in relation to our work and that it may be somehow sensitive as well but we would be very happy to hear from you if you would like to take the floor directly. You are most welcome to do so. Elisa, thank you. And then Elisa over to you. Thank you so much Valerie and thank you so much to the panelists. I do have a question I will be interested to know if there is around these table people that have really worked on tackling racism and discrimination in the operation using human rights education. So this could be very interesting and useful for the task team. Thank you so much. Thank you Elisa. A clear call for examples from the participants and over to you Huda please. Thank you Valerie. This is from UNSCR sorry I cannot switch on my camera I'm in Tunisia so I'm trying to have a good network while talking. So my question as you know I was in the field for years and I worked in different operation where IDPs were treated with different standards and we unfortunately always see bad and good IDPs when it comes to national authorities. Those who are coming from area of origin that are more or less with a similar political affiliation or ethnic groups or religious background that the governing authorities or the authorities managing the some sites or camps. And it's always very difficult for IDPs to speak up and to be vocal about that even if they share individually some frustration with protection officers or partners. When it comes to raising the issue more broadly or with the human rights mechanism it becomes another issue for them and they don't want to go that far because they are afraid from retaliation and to be seen as part of the opposition or any other like reason for which they don't want to raise that more broadly. So my question would be about the human rights mechanism and the use while we have this do no harm principle and this fear of IDPs like clearly expressed during individual interviews. How can we manage that this frustration and this is also part of the answer to Elisa regarding human rights education in some context is very difficult to contact or to contact human rights institution to conduct any sessions or focus group discussion because it's a very challenging context and it's very difficult to raise that either in a camp or a settlement. Over to you. Thank you Valery. Thank you so much Huda and thank you for grounding us because with your very strong field experience I think you bring clearly the dilemma between when we see and identify the problems when IDPs come to us as protection officers and speak to us. And then the next step what can be actually done how to support them in this very sensitive environment. So I'm sure our panelists will come back to this. We have also Saeed from OHCHR I believe on the call. So a lot of wealth of experiences but before that I would like to give the floor to Roberto over to you. Hi Valery thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, very well. So I think what I want to ask is as we as a lot of society people and society in certain countries are more aware of racism. It inevitably moves in a more subtle towards a more subtle manner in which of course tries to avoid classic signifiers of racism be it slurs or specific specific classic examples of hate crimes that are very much obvious. And I think this would be a question of if a certain person comes forward to us and with with regards to a certain incident how would how would we help try to try to assist them and also try to identify whether or not this is racism and whether or not we can escalate this. Because with these more more pervasive types of racism. If we try to escalate these types of issues sometimes it can it can impact all the times relations with the local with the local society or government. Thank you so much Robert also very concrete question what actually can be done and if there are any examples so I will turn back to Claude first to Maria Joseph but to anybody on the call as well as I'm sure you have various elements of response to to put forward over to you Claude. These are great questions and it's it's really wonderful to be a part of this discussion. I mean there are no simple answers to any of the questions raised, but maybe I'll just offer a couple of things. I think the second intervener in a sense answered the first question in that in that, you know, human rights education I think is very important. But and and also we need to be very mindful and clear of the actual situation of of of the people that we're supporting. Meaning also you know it's it's hard to tell people about rights if if if they're in, you know, if they're in very exposed situations and and we're powerless to to provide any any, you know, protection insight so I think one does need to be clear on pathetic and and and you know in in in our work to provide support to victims of of discrimination and and other forms of human rights abuse. That said I also think it's important to be aware that some people do want justice, and they that's what they want to have happen. And so we shouldn't stand in the way of that either. In a previous life I was a litigator. And I think you know we used to apply the sort of one in 10 rule, which was, you know, the one in 10 people do want to go forward, also aware of the risks. We need to also try to be there for those people as well. That, you know, people need to understand clearly what the risks are. And, you know, and and the fact that that there can be very serious repercussions of bringing a justice claim, but that if if if they so desire we should be there for that category of people. Yeah, that that means doing a lot of listening and doing a lot of communicating and understanding where people are coming from and and who one has in front of them. That concerns the victims themselves so in in terms of using the mechanisms you know this is what we think about when we think about how can we help someone try to bring a justice claim. But I also, I think it's important also to remember that you also have roles in using the mechanisms in the sense of the system wants to hear about what you are seeing and what you are experiencing and what the forces in front of you are. There are plenty of places in the world where, you know, there are a lot of not a lot of factual information is coming forward because, you know, the government doesn't want us to talk about it the people are afraid. There are any number of things interfering in in the system gaining a deep understanding of what the forces are. And you are you are the you are the knowledge base for that. Um, UNHCR, for example, regularly briefs served, it does so confidentially but it brings its understandings to the attention of the committee. Um, you there are other ways in which you can share your understanding and information so that the system as a whole gains a better understanding. So I think we both need to be aware of what our particular roles and abilities and possibilities are, as well as those that we exercise when we try to support the public at large and and and our our, you know, constituencies and communities of of people we serve over. Thank you so much, Claude. And over to you, Marie-José. Yes, okay, thank you. Um, I think that I will, yes, compliment what Claude has just said in the possibility to use the mechanism. I think that if in the country where you work or the locality where you work there is really no possibility. We know to talk to the authorities, authorize the issues with the authorities because those who are complaining, IDPs who are complaining of racism could be fear reprisers. I think you could do two things. This is what the kind of the doctrine that the committee has said for for number of years because in many, in many cases, victim of racial discrimination either they don't know they don't know their rights, or they could also fear fear reprisals, so they do not complain. So the first thing could be when this has come, you know, kind of pattern, you could collect, you know, could collect all the claims that you have received and realize that this is really a big issue that you could put forward, you know, and discuss with the authorities. It's very, very important that the authorities facilitate the possibility of IDPs and other people who are victims of racism or racial discrimination to access a remedy. This is really something which is, which is important and something that the committee has always highlighted in the recommendation. And for that, the committee always also ask the state party, you know, to educate police officers and so on and how to detect, you know, racial discrimination issue when people come to complain and to protect these people, you know, against any form of reprisal. And yes, and the second thing as God says is the possibility to bring these these kind of situations to human rights mechanism to treat bodies or even to special procedures because most of the special procedures have the police the possibility to receive and to address, to address communications. Thank you so much. Marie Joseph. Very good. I'm wondering if Saeed or Rosanna, you would like to come in to complement also some of the discussions as we don't have Bruno anymore online. Yes, thank you. It's really like an interesting discussion and for all of us, and especially I was also reviewing all the information that has been shared in the chat I found them really useful. Just to complement, I think an important aspect to take into account as Bruno also mentioned is on racism and racial discrimination that often occurs also in our own workplace culture. And that can also affect the world that we deliver in the humanitarian sector. Unfortunately, we sometimes have some conscious bias and it's important to recognize them that we might have some unconscious bias given also different cultures. I know that the secretary general has has launched last year that has also mentioned task force on addressing racism and promoting the need for all. They often conduct also training on unconscious bias and on how to to address discrimination in our workplace culture surfing that as humanitarian workers. It's important for us also to keep updated about all these activities. I can also paste some some more information in the chat if if you are interested. But yes, this is an important aspect. For instance, here like the Masjid office, we have tried to promote it. More trainings more raising awareness sessions. So one activity that we are that we are implementing is, for instance, a series of sessions on racial equity in the workplace. We have called on an expert senior facilitator because of course, like we are not expert on the subject. We are just people who want to try to address them. But of course, we need some some guidance. So this is one activities and we are also organizing some regional consultations in different languages with the with the larger min-action community in this case. To also get feedbacks from our partners to consult as you are doing right today with with your colleagues and with the min-actionary of responsibility with other NGOs. Because I think it's important to also not only just do it in our own offices, but like partnership and cooperation is key when we need to tackle this like a global scourge such as racism. So yes, thank you again for organizing this. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Rosana and also for reminding us the work we need to do all of us on those unconscious biases and making sure that we minimize the impact on our work and really we empower the persons of concern we serve. So thank you and I'm sure colleagues would be interested to read more if you could post some resources in the chat that would be fantastic. Thank you very much. Okay, colleagues. Very good. I don't see any further hands up or points in the chat. I saw that Maria Joseph very helpfully proposed that we can reach out to the committee if we would like to share some concerns or patterns that we identify on the ground and oftentimes if it can start from very simple initiatives such as confidential briefings such as sharing information we collect in the field on the ground in our operations. And this already contributes to highlighting the issues and the worrying concerns that we witness on the ground without necessarily going into specific cases if it's not possible in the context. I think this brings us then to the end of our event. Dear colleagues, as mentioned at the beginning, we hope that this is not really the last time that we gather and discuss. I wanted to start tackling the topic so of course there are now many fora that focus on racism but this niche of racism in the context of humanitarian actions in the context of internal displacement is not that often brought up. We feel that this is a gap and we will try to respond to it and based on the needs you have also I'm training to use have and colleagues who are on the ground to hear from you what would be useful for you. What you would like to receive from us or just discuss further or brainstorm together. As a heads up we will we are now working with Lobna who is on the call of course on developing a module for field protection clusters on how to tackle racism and related intolerance in the context of internal displacement. Thank you Lobna. So this is to be finalised in December. Lobna would you like to say a few words. Happily. I think it's very. I want to say exciting but it's very sad actually that we have to tackle this topic. It is high time that we look into it more deeply it was surprising to find out that it is a topic that is not usually on our radar when we talk about IDP protection so and that says I'm really happy that it's coming to surface and we're catching up. I am working on a session on the training session that we will pilot to a group of participants I think use of his with us here online as well. And taking their opinions and then once it's finalised we will be sharing it together with the whole package with everyone in the in the field for you guys to own it basically and use it as is inappropriate so if anyone has any suggestions or highlights or key messages or topics that you really want to see in the future please reach out and let me know I'd be currently we're in the design phase so we'll be happy to take in all suggestions and requests. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you so much Lobna and we really look forward to having this module ready for our field colleagues but everybody on the call, more than happy to get your perspective suggestions examples and incorporate them in the materials. And at the meantime is sharing a lot of useful resources in the chat. So thank you for that we will make sure also it's included in the summary of this event so that we record them and put them together. In in this session background known. Very good colleague so thank you very much for your time thank you for the space we have given to this very important topic and we look forward to being in touch. Feel free to reach out directly. Thanks to Claude thanks thanks to Mauricio and of course to Bruno for sharing your experiences and expertise with us and we will be definitely in touch. Thank you for having us. Thank you colleagues very interesting.