Every year Zero Discrimination Day is observed on 1st of March by the United Nations and other international organisations. This special day is reserved to promote equality and to stand against discrimination before the law and in practice across the globe.
Discrimination is simply, ”the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability”. Most of the time, the victims of discrimination are a minority isolated from the majority due to a certain uniqueness that they cannot hel with. People all around the world face an unfortunate amount of inequalities due to these unchangeable factors such as age, race, health status, occupation, disability, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, class, income, ethnicity, colour, religion and many more.
The acts of discrimination come in different variations. Sometimes, they are direct and active, taking the shapes of violent attacks to violent speech to fearsome aggression. Other times they are indirect and passive, starting from microaggressions to stereotyping and judging people with no prior knowledge. Every day harassment, bullying and victimisation occur due to people fearing difference and lacking empathy, understanding and overall, emotional intelligence.
The world is full of different colours, shapes, textures, beings and things. It is exactly this multifaceted nature that makes it beautiful and wondrous. The similar principle is also applicable to humankind in the sense our distinctiveness from one another creates the most extraordinary kaleidoscope of beauty. Shattering that uniqueness and wishing people to be the same copy of appearance, beliefs and convictions just like mass produced dolls out of a factory is a tragedy that the world is facing at the moment. It is this outlook that should be corrected.
No one deserves to be isolated, cornered, harassed, bullied and rights taken away simply because they are different from what’s deemed as normal. Thus, everyone has a responsibility to hold discriminators accountable, call for change and contribute to efforts to remove discriminatory laws. You have the power to change the lives of victims.
On the Zero Discrimination Day, let us spread kindness and take an unwavering stand against all the discrimination that our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children face everyday.
