Minorities Subcommission discusses discrimination problems.

• Position: United Nations Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities - Human Rights

A wide variety of issues, including religious intolerance, contemporary forms of slavery, problems of women, children and youth and the relationship between human rights and the environment, was discussed by the UN Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities at its forty-third session (5-30 August, Geneva).

Also debated were problems of specific minorities and discrimination against indigenous peoples, the disabled, and people afflicted with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

The 26-member body wanted a global consultation on the position and approaches of different regligions to human rights. It also invited States which had Roma (gypsy) communities living within their borders to take measures to ensure the de jure and de facto equality of members of those communities.

The Subcommission supported the proposal for a Third Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, to begin in 1993.

The subsidiary body of the UN Commission on Human Rights continued its standard-setting activities, notably on the elaboration of international norms relating to the rights of indigenous peoples.

International and financial institutions, in particular the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, were urged to take greater account of the adverse impact of their policies and programmes of structural adjustment on the realization of economic, social and cultural rights.

Governments were called on to strengthen the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession as fundamental elements in the protection of human rights.

The Subcommission, by secret ballot, adopted resolutions on the human rights situation in various countries and regions. That procedure was recently authorized to enhance the Subcommission's independence.

It also considered, in closed session, communications from individuals and other sources related to stiuations which appeared to reveal a consistent pattern...