Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 2nd Oct. Costa Rica on Sunday has become the first even country in Latin America to draft first anti-hate strategy, according to the UN and various news reports.
Faustina Torres, from the Bribri indigenous community in Costa Rica, feeling invisible to others is a stinging form of discrimination she has fought against since childhood.
“Costa Rican society does not teach us that there are indigenous people in this country,” she said.
“It is a form of discrimination, making the existence of indigenous peoples invisible.”
Costa Rica, with UN support has been designing Latin America’s first ever strategy to fight back, after an alarming trend of rising hate speech and discrimination online platforms.
It poised to unveil the powerful tool by the end of 2023 the landmark strategy to lay the foundation for new national policies,
Costa Rica’s Communication Minister Jorge Rodríguez said “We must not let expressions of hate, violence and discrimination become normalized in public and digital spaces.”
She explained when announcing the strategy’s unveiling “Today, we recognize that decisive action is required from the State, but also from all social actors to address this great challenge.”
The attempts to unravel the social fabric may be virtual but the threats are real.
An artificial intelligence driven UN study this year detected over 1.4 million messages and conversations related to hate and discrimination on Costa Rica’s social media platforms, a 255 per cent spike since 2021.
Allegra Baiocchi the UN Resident Coordinator the country said her team realized that most hate content targeted women, particularly those in leadership positions, LGBTQ issues, and migrants.
She said “When we started speaking to women and some of the people who had been targeted, they told us that they felt scared, scared to express their opinions”.
UN urged immediate action from Costa Rica stepped up, laying the groundwork for a safe digital space for all, which can act as a replicable blueprint for fighting hate online around the world.
It aligned with SG’s priorities to stamp out hate and led by a multidisciplinary expert team from the UN and the Government, the new strategy will provide solutions to stop these scourges from spreading online, from determining responsibilities, creating new monitoring, and identifying areas of action.
Ms. Baiocchi said “With the launch of this process of creating a national strategy, we are taking a step in the right direction,”
She noted steps taken include the recent launch of a guide to confront digital violence against women in politics.
Government established an observatory on hate speech with the University of Costa Rica, passed a law protecting women in politics, and forged a partnership with the Lawyers Committee Association, who studied laws on hate speech evolving around the world and produced a handbook for those affected.
“In Costa Rica, if you’ve been a victim of hate speech, you can go to this handbook and see what is already available for you to protect yourself,” said Ms. Baiocchi.
She highlighted other such ongoing initiatives as teaching debate in schools.
“Fundamentally, the message behind any work on hate speech and discrimination…is about being able to respect each other and coexist,” she said.
Secretary-General António Guterres also launch his campaign to end hate speech online and off.
In response to trends of growing xenophobia, racism and intolerance, violent misogyny, antisemitism, and anti-Muslim hatred around the world, the Secretary-General launched the UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech in 2019.
“If left unchecked,” he said, “hate speech can even harm peace and development, as it lays the ground for conflicts and tensions, wide scale human rights violations.”
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