Starting this Tuesday, the School Guidelines for Preventing and Combating Racial Discrimination are in place to raise awareness, provide information on how to seek help and what penalties are provided by law for discriminatory acts.
The document, about 40 pages long, was prepared under the coordination of the High Commission for Migration and presented in Lisbon by the Deputy Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Ana Catarina Méndez.
“This guide is not intended to be a best practice guide, but to raise awareness among young people and a tool to help older people prevent” situations of racism, the minister said during a ceremony held at the Escola Secundária Camões.
Before an audience of students and teachers, Ana Catarina Mendez said that the guide contains national and international standards on what racial discrimination is, forms of prevention and punishment in the legal field.
“It is a tool for teachers and students and also for society,” he added, noting that more and more migrants are coming to Portuguese society.
Speaking at the same meeting, High Commissioner for Migration Sonia Pereira stressed that this was the first guide in Portugal specifically for schools.
However, Sonia Pereira believed that it was “a mission that brings the whole of society together”.
It can be read in the document that the Commission for Equality and Against Racial Discrimination (CICDR) has registered several complaints in the field of education since its inception, of which “more than half” concerned basic and secondary education.
“Most of the complaints were filed by fathers and mothers of children and young people, there were also complaints from school workers who were discriminated against, and anonymous complaints, most often cited as reasons for offenses due to skin color, racial and ethnic origin” and nationality, according to with data entered in the directory.
The document was presented on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, established by the United Nations in 1966.