Social Workers, Race Discrimination, and International Human Rights Conventions: A Canadian Perspective

Abstract

Racial discrimination continues to haunt Canada, calling for effective and new solutions. There are clear and real limitations to the current domestic avenues of redress. This paper reviews the effectiveness of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. We argue that the treaty contains comprehensive and legally effective provisions to combat racial discrimination. Social workers, along with other professionals, should engage with the international legal regime to assist their clientele to combat racial discrimination. Internationally, progress toward racial equality has been made in the last two decades, symbolized partly by the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa. But the belief that racism and racial discrimination are very much under control is as erroneous as it is pervasive (Tang, 2003). Xenophobic and racially motivated acts of violence continue to plague people in all parts of the world. In the United States, the fact remains that racial discrimination is deeply entrenched, characterized by disproportionate incarceration of blacks, police violence, and poverty (Gordon, 2000). Likewise, racial discrimination in Canada is more than isolated instances of racist behavior by aberrant individuals or the acts of extremist groups. Scholars like Anand (1998) find much evidence of racism and discrimination in Canadian society that includes government-sanctioned discrimination as well as racial hatred.