Winnie Byanyima said on Tuesday that she was subjected to racism by airport authorities in Geneva, Switzerland.
The executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and Aids (UNAids) was on her way to attend the International AIDS Conference running from Wednesday, July 27 to August 2, 2022.
Byanyima said while at Geneva airport, she was almost blocked from boarding the plane and only managed to do so after her documents were scrutinized over and over again.
“I’m @ Geneva airport, at the gate, boarding pass in hand on my way to #unaids2022, I’m almost refused to board, all documents scrutinized over and over again, calls made…I board last,” she tweeted.
She added: “Hundreds of people in the South have been denied visas and won’t attend #UNAIDS2022. Unjust, racist!”
In May this year, Byanyima said racism, an ideology created to justify an economy of slavery, has remained despite the end of slavery and colonialism.
“I have no faith in policies driven from the top, that are not led by those experiencing racism themselves,” she said while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
I’m @ Geneva airport, at the gate, boarding pass in hand on my way to #unaids2022, I’m almost refused to board, all docs scrutinised over &over again, calls made…. I board last. Hundreds of people in the South have been denied visas & won’t attend #UNAIDS2022
Unjust, racist!— Winnie Byanyima (@Winnie_Byanyima) July 26, 2022
“When people cannot access health care or education because the debt crisis chokes off financing in majority black and brown countries, what do you call that? That’s racism.”
She cited the case of the global response to COVID-19, describing it as racist and sexist.
She hinted at the “unequal distribution of vaccines for many people of color to beliefs that Africans couldn’t produce a vaccine”.
“Slavery ended. Colonialism ended. But the ideology has remained and we have to remove it,” noted Byanyima, adding that racism is not only police violence but also policy violence.
In 2020, when George Floyd, a Black man from Minnesota, was killed in police custody, Byanyima said racism is entrenched in the institutions.
“These are early days,” she noted, adding, “We’ve had racism with us for 500 years. It was an idea that was created to justify slavery.”