Topic 2 Strengthening the confidence of religious minorities

  • Improve participation of minorities in social, cultural and political life
  • Provide support services to victims of religious hate crime
  • Involve religious minorities in community-wide initiatives
  • Raise awareness using mass media communication campaigns on religious minorities and importance of interreligious respect
  • Provide equal rights and access to religious minorities across all contexts

  • Improving legal and criminal justice responses to hate crime
  • Improving response to discrimination in other fields (e.g. labour market)
  • Improving understanding of religions, their prevalence and requirements
  • Adapting regulations and service provision to be more inclusive of different religious and secular groups
  • Improving spaces for expression and interaction
  • Engaging with political and media discourses
  • Adapting responses to particular contexts and different stages within local processes

Activities

Go to this link→ https://rm.coe.int/16806c84db

1.In groups of 2 or 3 people, review the best practices listed

2.Select 1 or 2 that you think you can adopt to implement in your professional and national contexts

3.Develop a brief action plan about the steps needed to implement this practice with the scope of strengthening the confidence of religious minorities

Examples of human rights violations of religious minorities worldwide:

  • In 2013 a study took place in multi-religious Pakistan
  • The study wanted to prove that adolescents from religious minorities in Pakistan have lower-self esteem than Muslim Pakistanis
  • A total of 320 adolescents participated in the study. Half of them were Muslims and the other half were Christian and Hindus

The results of the study proved that the adolescents from religious minorities had actually lower self esteem.

Iqbal, S., Ahmad, R. & Ayub, N. (2013)

Image available at: https://www.shutterstock.com

Activities

Are you confident declaring your faith in public?

What other measures would you support to straighten the confidence of religious minorities?

Have you ever felt your human rights violated due to your religious beliefs?