OPENING REMARKS, Christina Meinecke, Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the European Union.

9 October 2026, UN House in Brussels.

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Dear colleagues, partners and friends,

It is a great pleasure to welcome you back to the UN House.

For some of us, this is the second day of a conversation that began here yesterday. On 8 October, our annual Racism, Discrimination and Health event focused on the intersection of racism, gender-based violence and women’s health. We discussed a central human rights question: what happens when discrimination shapes not only access to health care, but also the conditions in which people can protect their health, exercise autonomy and live with dignity?

Today, we continue that conversation from a different, and much less explored, angle. We turn to racism, ageing and sport, and to what their intersection means for the right to health.

This continuity matters. Racism is not experienced in one institution, at one moment, or at one stage of life. Its effects can accumulate across the life course. If yesterday we looked closely at how racial discrimination can enter the health system itself, today we ask how racism can shape one of the conditions that helps people remain healthy before they ever reach a health service: the ability to be physically active, to participate in sport, and to do so on an equal basis throughout life.

Today also marks the second consultation we have undertaken here in Brussels on racism and sport. In March 2025, OHCHR convened a regional consultation for Europe with athletes and players, sports bodies, civil society, States and other stakeholders. We examined manifestations of racism in sport, accountability and remedies, and the responsibilities of governments and sporting organisations. That consultation fed into the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ 2025 report to the Human Rights Council on a world of sport free from racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

That work confirmed that racism in sport cannot be reduced to a racist insult in a stadium or an isolated incident involving an individual athlete. We also have to look at structures, institutions, opportunities, representation and participation.

And today we want to take another step. We want to focus on a dimension that remains much less visible: what happens when racial discrimination intersects with ageing?

This is a particularly important blind spot. When we discuss racism in sport, attention tends to centre on professional athletes, major competitions, younger people and highly visible racist incidents. When we discuss ageing, the policy conversation tends to centre on pensions, health care, long-term care, loneliness and social protection. Too rarely do these conversations meet.

And when they do not meet, older racialised persons can disappear between policy categories.

Academia has begun to examine this intersection but policy-making seems not yet to have caught up.

Research is asking who participates in sport later in life, how participation differs across ethnic and migrant-origin groups, and which social and economic factors help explain those differences. But the evidence base remains fragmented. We need better data, including data that allows us to understand how race and ethnicity interact with age, gender, disability, migration status and socioeconomic circumstances.

At the same time, we already know enough to ask why this intersection remains so weakly reflected in policy.

Europe has policies and initiatives on anti-racism. It has policies promoting sport and physical activity. It has policies on healthy and active ageing. Yet the specific situation of older racialised persons, and the barriers they may face in accessing sport and physical activity, remains largely invisible.

And this is not simply a matter of sports policy. It is a matter of the right to health.

We know that exercise and physical activity are critical building blocks for healthy ageing. The World Health Organization stresses that physical activity in older age supports functional capacity, helps prevent falls, sustains mobility and independence, and helps maintain social networks. Lifelong physical activity can also prevent or delay major non-communicable diseases and dementia. So, when a person is facing limitations, including financial and/or stigma to participate in sport, the consequence is not simply that they miss a leisure activity. Over time, barriers to physical activity can affect health, functional ability, independence, social connection and well-being and hence negatively impact the ability of people to attain the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

So, what are the questions we should ask to break these barriers: Are opportunities to be active distributed equally? Can older racialized persons access suitable facilities? Are activities affordable? Do they feel welcome and safe? Are programmes designed with different cultural, religious and linguistic realities in mind? Do stereotypes about race and stereotypes about age reinforce one another? Are people excluded because of the neighborhood in which they live in, their income, disability or migration status?

And, a very important question, do people who experienced racism in sport earlier in life continue to carry those experiences with them as they grow older?

People do not become “older racialized persons” on a specific birthday. They reach older age with histories. A person who was made to feel unwelcome in a sports club at 15, who stopped participating at 25, or who repeatedly encountered racism in sporting spaces does not leave those experiences behind when they reach 50, 60 or 70.

This is why we need a life-course perspective, not only to understand the barriers facing older people today, but also to reverse them.

Today, we want to hear from researchers, but also from civil society, sporting organisations, policymakers, practitioners and, crucially, people with lived experience. We want to understand what prevents participation and what enables it. We want to identify promising practices. And we want to translate evidence into concrete policy recommendations.

What would an anti-racist approach to active and healthy ageing actually look like? What would it require from municipalities, governments and the European Union? What should sports federations, clubs and grassroots organisations do differently? What evidence should we collect? And how do we ensure that older racialized persons themselves shape the policies and programmes intended for them?

The timing is important. The EU Anti-Racism Strategy 2026-2030 places renewed emphasis on structural racism, implementation, participation and partnership.

The outcomes of this consultation will inform our engagement on the implementation of that Strategy, including how its commitments can respond more effectively to forms of discrimination that emerge at the intersection of race and age.

And our discussion will also contribute to OHCHR’s continuing work on racism and sport. Following the Human Rights Council’s renewed mandate on a world of sports free from racism, the findings and recommendations emerging from this consultation will help inform the High Commissioner’s next reporting on racism in sport.

Lastly, you know that a new legally binding instrument on the human rights of older persons is under discussion in Geneva and looking at this intersection of racism, racism in sports, the right to health and ageing may also be one element feeding into those discussions.

Yesterday, we asked how health systems can stop reproducing discrimination. Today, we ask how inclusive sport and physical activity can become part of overcoming it. Because healthy ageing should not be a privilege. And the opportunity to participate, to move, to exercise and to belong should not diminish because racism and ageism intersect.

I very much look forward to your evidence, your experiences and, most importantly, your recommendations.

Thank you, and I wish us a productive and thought-provoking discussion.