On International Youth Day, Partners Foundation stresses the importance of supporting youth in confronting racism and hate speech

As part of Partners for Transparency’s work to empower youth and combat racism and hate speech, Partners Foundation presents, in conjunction with International Youth Day, which falls on August 12 of each year, a working paper on “Engaging Youth in Addressing Racism and Hate Speech.” This comes in light of the fact that combating hate speech requires taking multiple measures and policies, including enacting and enforcing laws that explicitly prohibit hate speech and incitement to violence, establishing legal mechanisms to hold individuals accountable for hate speech, developing awareness campaigns that promote tolerance and respect, consolidating human rights principles, and establishing mechanisms to monitor and document cases of hate speech.

For her part, Mirna Shalash, head of Partners for Transparency, confirmed that The youth play the most important role in combating hate speech, and their role in identifying, raising awareness of, and confronting hate speech cannot be overlooked, especially since they are the group most affected by it and also the most capable of confronting it and driving meaningful change by speaking out against hate speech.

In light of the above, Partners for Transparency has made recommendations to all stakeholders, including governments, NGOs, academic institutions, and international organizations. The most prominent of these recommendations is to work on providing financial and institutional support to young people seeking to implement initiatives to combat racism and hate speech, as well as working on developing and implementing awareness programs targeting young people to raise awareness of the dangers of hate speech and racism, including workshops, seminars, and social media campaigns that aim to spread a culture of mutual respect and acceptance of others, in addition to working on providing financial support to NGOs that work to engage young people in combating racism and hate speech, and establishing a dedicated fund to support youth initiatives concerned with combating hate speech.