Monday, March 1 is Zero Discrimination Day

March 1 is Zero Discrimination Day, an annual worldwide event that promotes diversity and recognizes that everyone counts

Organizations like the United Nations (UN) actively promote Zero Discrimination Day with various activities to celebrate everyone’s right to live a full life with dignity regardless of age, gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, skin color, height, weight, profession, education, and beliefs, according to timeanddate.com.

The Theme of Zero Discrimination Day 2021, is “Zero Discrimination against Women and Girls.”

Ultimately, gender inequality affects everyone’s health and well-being. In many countries, laws that discriminate against women and girls remain in force, while laws that uphold women’s basic rights and protect them against harm and unequal treatment are far from the norm.

Many countries have laws against discrimination but it’s still a problem in all layers of society in every country in the world. Many countries have and still use discrimination as a way of governing.

The symbol for the universal Day is the butterfly, widely used by people to share their stories and photos as a way to end discrimination and work towards positive transformation.

Campaigners in India have used this day to speak out against laws making discrimination against the LGBTI community more likely, especially during the previous campaign to repeal the law (Indian Penal Code, s377[5]) that used to criminalize homosexuality in that country, before that law was overturned by the Indian Supreme Court in September 2018.

In 2015, Armenian Americans in California held a ‘die-in’ on Zero Discrimination Day to remember the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

Zero Discrimination Day is a global observance and not a public holiday so it’s business as usual.

The UN first celebrated the global day on March 1, 2014, after UNAIDS, a UN program on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), launched its Zero Discrimination Campaign on World AIDS Day in December 2013.