The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by States.

The UN CERD Committee reviews actions taken against the injustice of racial discrimination by the countries. In August 2024, the Committee examined the UK on its compliance with CERD. The previous concluding observations on the UK was in 2016. The UK Government’s therefore submitted its report to the UN Committee in March 2023 detailing its progress against the concerns and recommendations outlined by the UN Committee in its 2016 Concluding Observations

However, civil society organisations were provided with an opportunity by the UN to submit their own parallel reports on their assessments on how will the UK was complying with its obligations to eliminate racism. MWNUK submitted a parallel report outlining how anti-Muslims racism impacts the lives of Muslims in Britain, especially Muslim women. This was submitted by the UN’s deadline of 5th July 2024 and can be downloaded from here. MWNUK also submitted a contribution by video as they did not attend the UN session in person, which can be found here.

The UN Committee will publish its concerns and recommendations to the UK Government in the form of “concluding observations”. These will now be used as an advocacy tool to push for change to ensure Muslim women from racialised groups have their rights respected.