DRAFT
General Assembly
Public Statement of Anti-Racism
In May 2020, IPPF commissioned an internal institutional anti-racism review. The push for the review came not only from within the organisation but from global events that prompted us – a 70-year-old international NGO – to rethink our own path. Challenged internally by staff and a growing anti-racism movement, that followed the tragic murder of George Floyd our aim was to understand and address the double impact of racism and our legacy that was shaped by colonialism.
The result is a sobering reflection of how our history was shaping our present. The review revealed the presence of interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism at IPPF. The IPPF Secretariat has allowed institutional and individual racism to prevail in how we have navigated spaces whose histories have either been stolen, silenced, subdued, subjugated, side-lined, or even rewritten.
IPPF’s past is a complex one. Launched in India, by three women with three different legacies, IPPF has championed women’s rights during tough times, but acknowledges the racist ideology of past leadership, including Margaret Sanger. IPPF stood by those whose sexualities have been marginalised by right-wing governments and supported those whose identities were being repressed, and they did not have control of their sexual and reproductive health rights. However, IPPF did not equally stand in support of those harmed by colonisation and racism.
As an institution, we hereby formally apologise to all staff, past and present, and any individuals who may have been affected by any manifestation of racism and that might have suffered in silence as they felt powerless to speak out. We sincerely acknowledge and accept full responsibility for our organisation’s actions and inaction.
The IPPF also acknowledges our past colonial relationships with member associations and has played a part in the secretariat relationship with member associations. In this regard we will work with members to course correct on this and find an equitable relationship in our future interactions.
We, as IPPF, strongly oppose racism in all its forms. In this regard, we accept our report’s recommendations and have taken first steps in ensuring that IPPF operates within a framework built on equity, diversity and inclusion. IPPF recognises the need to move with expediency to dismantle and eradicate racism in all its existing forms. We need to install a framework that affirms the universality and inalienability of human rights, recognising that racism violates human rights. These are the values that we aspire to, values that afford all our members and staff dignity and belonging, while holding IPPF accountable.
The time to unlearn, listen, re-listen and learn anew is now. There is no time to lose, as the world is facing a resurgence of bigotry. The notions of equity, diversity, inclusion, access, freedom of choice and bodily autonomy are increasingly being tested by the rising tide of religious and right-wing extremism, disinformation, undemocratic forces and racist ideologies.
In the way we work, we want to better reflect how discrimination based on gender and sexuality intersects with race, ethnicity, religion, and caste in a geographically diverse global federation such as ours.
We will revisit our leadership structure at the Secretariat and monitor how it reflects diversity.
We will embark on rewriting policies and consider how racism is dismantled, along with its interplay with intersectionalities
Our Code of Conduct, we recognise, did not protect all of us from individual and institutional racism nor provide the tools for recourse and, for this purpose will be rewritten.
Task forces, training sessions, and forums will be convened with the aim of ensuring that all our systems, structures and safeguards reflect the anti-racist stance we are adopting. And to take this further – to continue our work to protect and fight for the rights of marginalised populations globally.
We need to ensure that racism does not continue to persist and is replaced by a culture of anti-racism in the federation.
That colonialism is a story of the past and impacts on our present and has repercussions for our future.
We need to come together to reckon with our shared colonial past and use it to create more open and honest dialogue where we can address the persistent colonial legacies in our systems.
-ENDS-
I am sure each of us encounters racism at some point in our lives. As racism is a barrier to development, we have to learn to manage it or embrace it in order to live the life we want to live. Growing up in Tonga, South Pacific, in an elitist, hierarchical society, ‘racism’ exists more on class positioning, culturally structured lines.
This draft statement, alerts us , to ‘racism’ issues when delivering our health care services to those in need.
Dear Akanete Thank you for taking the time to leave us a comment. And for reflecting your experience of racism in your part of the world. It resonates and we thank you.
Diversity is a term everyone knows nowadays. However, sometimes we find it as a term only. Therefore this situation might end up in some racism activities. We can’t deny diversity breeds differences. The ancestors had their own way to overcome it, including war, such as tribal war to the highest level of war, that we’ve been told that who ever fought for their race, religion, country, etc is a hero/heroes. Because of it, sometimes it’s hard to know whether the situation is kind of racism or not. Those traumas still haunted us and make us confuse to be ourselves. For example, in my own country, sometimes we ‘adore’ white skin people and make it as one of those beauty standards. We obsessed to be white and forget ‘how we should be’. That simple thing people barely realise it. Or else, we use jokes to cover our racism behaviour. And when someone stand for themselves, because their pride got hurt by those jokes, we call them ‘too excessive’.
Racism breeds so much negative things and impacts, even it could take portion to decide which one is ‘correct’ and which one is ‘false’. Worse yet, racism indirectly breeds fanaticism. And unfortunately, we can see it around us, instead of do something or take an action to reject it, we just keep silent, as if it never happened or we even justify it. And it’s a public secret that some of leaders in this world perpetuate racism on behalf of ‘protecting their country/region’.
Thank you IPPF for reminding us about the danger of racism and keep providing us some ways to prevent and against racism, both from internal and external. Hopefully, we all keep progressing to prevent and against racism in non-racism ways.