Human rights of minorities: modern forms of slavery are 'great scandal.' (United Nations)

Slavery, sex tourism and xenophobia were among the broad range of issues addressed by the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities at its forty-fourth session (3-28 August, Geneva). Racial discrimination, the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples, economic, social and cultural rights, the administration of justice and other human rights matters were also on the agenda.

As the principal subsidiary of the Commission on Human Rights, the 26-member Subcommission asked that increased attention be paid to issues related to trafficking in children, child labour and prostitution, children in armed conflicts and commercial or exploitative adoptions.

The Subcommission was gravely concerned over sex tourism and requested the World Tourism Organization to discuss ways of preventing that phenomenon. States should take urgent measures to protect minors from exposure to or involvement in child pornography, it said.

A meeting of experts is to take place in March 1993 on the application of international human rights regulations in cases of youth detention.

The Subcommission recommended that the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights (14-25 June, Vienna) should give priority to the question of discrimination against women. It should also deal with strengthening the protection of human rights during states of emergency, which Governments were invited to limit to situations sufficiently serious and exceptional to justify them.

It invited the Commission on Human Rights to appoint a thematic special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia, in light of recent trends in many countries, and supported the launching in 1993 of a Third Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination.

The Commission was further asked to declare that an independent and impartial judiciary and an independent legal profession were essential prerequisites for protection of human rights. Preparation of a new report on practices which had strengthened or weakened the independence of the judiciary was asked.

On human rights and arms trade, the Subcommission called for an in-depth study on the positive impact on the promotion of human rights of a 10 per cent reduction in world armament expenditures. Member States, it declared, should take into account the potentially negative impact of excessive accumulation of arms upon the full realization of human rights. It urged States to incorporate human rights criteria...