A/HRC/21/27 organizations (NGOs), had invested in preventing and combating racism and racial discrimination and undertaken several public awareness initiatives. National minorities were well represented in State agencies and in top management of local authorities in areas where they constituted a substantial part of the population. Brazil [Original: English] [7 May 2012] 5. Brazil reported that equality was enshrined as a fundamental constitutional principle and racism was criminalized under articles 3, 5 and 7 of the 1988 Constitution, which also permits affirmative action under articles 215 and 216. The constitutional provision on racism was complemented by Law No. 7716/1989 and Law No. 9459/1997. 6. Brazil reported that the fight against racism and racial discrimination had been incorporated as a cross-cutting element in the formulation and implementation of domestic policy initiatives and transformed into an underlying component of State strategy. Affirmative action measures required under the law had been established at various levels of governance to ensure multiculturalism in the political and legal spheres. 7. Extremist political parties, movements and platforms were subject to judicial and administrative control through various agencies, namely, the Office of the Public Defender and the Office of the Federal Public Prosecutor. The two administrative control bodies were linked to the Secretariat for Policies on the Promotion of Racial Equality, namely the Office of National Ombudsman for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Ouvidoria Nacional de Promoção da Igualdade Racial) and the National Council for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Conselho Nacional de Promoção da Igualdade Racial). 8. Since 2010, Brazil had undertaken a number of awareness and education campaigns and institutionalized the National Policy on the Promotion of Racial Equality through enactment of the Racial Equality Statute. There was an interministerial multi-year plan to confront racism and promote equality. The National System for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Sistema Nacional de Promoção da Igualdade Racial) was currently under finalization, which once established would facilitate the decentralizing of policies to address ethnic disparities in an articulated manner between the different levels of Government. The Intergovernmental Forum on Promoting Racial Equality (Fórum Intergovernamental de Promoção da Igualdade Racial) was also established to facilitate the mainstreaming of the National Policy for the Promotion of Racial Equality in the programmes of states and municipalities. 9. In its submission, Brazil stated its belief in the Durban principles recognizing racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance as global phenomena that affected all nations albeit with different levels of intensity. Recognition of the existence of racism was the first step towards correcting past mistakes and combating modern-day racial prejudice. Social justice for victims of intergenerational racism required a three-pronged approach: rights and historical recognitions, material and symbolic redistribution, and political and legal representation in the public sphere. A key challenge remained addressing structural conditions that permitted racism and racial discrimination against Afrodescendants. 10. Brazil highlighted the following priorities as proposed by the Ibero-American Conference on the International Year of Afro-Descendants (Encuentro Iberoamericano del Año Internacional de los Afrodescendientes – Afro XXI), held in Brazil in November 2011, namely the establishment of the Observatory for Statistical Data on Afro-Descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean, the creation of an Ibero-American Fund for AfroDescendants based on voluntary contributions, and the establishment of an Afro4