A/HRC/45/47 enforcement officers, discriminatory incarceration, racial profiling and structural racial discrimination. Racial discrimination continues largely unabated and access to justice and accountability continues to be a very distant prospect for far too many people of African descent. 19. As mentioned in paragraph 2 above, during its forty-third session the Human Rights Council held an urgent debate on current racially inspired human rights violations, systemic racism, police brutality against people of African descent and violence against peaceful protests. The High Commissioner, in her statement of 17 June 2020,16 noted that the killing of Mr. Floyd at the hands of the police in Minneapolis had come to symbolize “the systemic racism that harms millions of people of African descent – causing pervasive, daily, lifelong, generational and too often, lethal harm”. She added that “systemic racial discrimination extends beyond any expression of individual hatred. It results from bias in multiple systems and institutions of public policy, which separately and together perpetuate and reinforce barriers to equality”.17 20. Racial profiling is a key feature of racial discrimination in law enforcement. In the programme of activities, States are urged to take further measures to increase access to justice, including by designing, implementing and enforcing effective measures to eliminate the phenomenon popularly known as “racial profiling”, and by eliminating institutionalized stereotypes concerning people of African descent and applying appropriate sanctions against law enforcement officials who act on the basis of racial profiling.18 The COVID-19 pandemic has similarly highlighted that people of African descent are likely to face disproportionate checks and surveillance in times of crisis.19 21. In 2019, OHCHR contributed to the report of the Secretary-General on the programme of activities, which focused on racial profiling.20 OHCHR provided information specifically about the racial profiling of people of African descent and the applicable international legal framework and also provided some examples of good practices. Furthermore, OHCHR has been working with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on drafting a general recommendation on preventing and combating racial profiling, for which a preliminary drafting session was held during the ninety-eighth session of the Committee, from 23 April to 10 May 2019. III. Implementation at the midterm of the Decade: activities of the High Commissioner A. Debate on the midterm review of the International Decade for People of African Descent 22. On 13 March 2020, during the forty-third session of the Human Rights Council, OHCHR organized a debate on the midterm review of the Decade to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 21 that was convened by the President of the Council and that benefited from the participation of representatives of the Governments of Canada and Ghana, the United Nations Population Fund and civil society. The objective of the debate was to assess the extent to which the programme of activities for the Decade had been implemented. 23. During the debate, the High Commissioner recalled that much more needed to be done by all States and stakeholders to advance the equality and dignity of people of African 16 17 18 19 20 21 See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25968&LangID=E. Ibid. General Assembly resolution 69/16, annex, para. 17 (b)–(c). See www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Racism/COVID-19_and_Racial_Discrimination.pdf. A/73/354. Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 74/137, para. 29. The debate was broadcast live and archived at http://webtv.un.org. 5