Racial & Ethnic discrimination is a sub-theme of the PeaceWomen Theme: Human Rights, and forms part of PeaceWomen’s framework to organize our women, peace and security resources for ease of reference and understanding. It is important to note that themes and sub-themes are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.

The United Nations (UN) has worked to decrease racial and ethnic discrimination since the adoption of the UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Racial and ethnic discrimination can affect women and men in different ways. It is vital to understand the gender dimensions of racial and ethnic discrimination in order to adequately design responses that will be effective for combating racial and ethnic discrimination against women as well as men. It is often the case that women are targeted victims of racial discrimination solely based on their gender by way of “sexual violence committed against women members of particular racial or ethnic groups in detention or during armed conflict; the coerced sterilization of indigenous women; abuse of women workers in the informal sector or domestic workers employed abroad by their employers.”

The UN has taken several steps to attempt to eradicate gender based racial and ethnic discrimination through the creation, adoption, and implementation of several treaties, conventions and committees; for example the Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1963 followed by the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1967 and the Beijing Platform for Action which was the result of the work at the 1995 World Conference on Women.