The Permanent Forum calls upon the Economic and Social Council, including its youth forum, the high-level political forum on sustainable development, the Commission on the Status of Women and the Commission for Social Development, as well as other relevant United Nations forums, to include representatives of indigenous youth-led organizations in their meetings.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF operationalize and implement its strategic framework on indigenous and minority children and report to the Forum in 2012 on measures undertaken to that end.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the resolution of the seventeenth Ibero-American summit of Heads of State which calls for a world conference on indigenous peoples, to be organized by the United Nations, and urges States to support this initiative at the General Assembly level.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF recognize and respect the right of free, prior and informed consent in the preparation and implementation of its strategic policy framework on indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues compile a database on case studies showing the progress made by Member States and organizations regarding indigenous youth rights in the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum urges all States to substantially increase the human and financial resources made available to all indigenous communities and schools to prevent self-harm and suicide among young people, and for holistic treatment based on cultural, spiritual and linguistic revitalization, providing healthy and positive lifestyle choices and access to traditional methods of counselling based on accurate and reliable data.
The Permanent Forum urges States to generate statistics disaggregated by ethnicity, gender, indigenous identity, language, language skills and self-identification, and to provide sources of data to allow for a more accurate assessment of whether indigenous children and youth are actually benefiting from the expenditure earmarked for them. The Forum also urges United Nations agencies, funds and programmes to support member States in generating statistics and the United Nations agencies, funds and programmes and academic centres to produce a toolkit that provides a comprehensive and an accurate overview of human development indicators concerning indigenous children and youth.
The Forum recommends that FAO develop a strategic plan for working with indigenous peoples by defining the FAO mission, vision and conceptual framework for indigenous peoples
The Permanent Forum was presented with horrific testimonies of Indigenous children incarcerated in prisons and other holding facilities. The Permanent Forum reminds Member States to fulfil their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child in relation to the arrest, detention, or imprisonment of a child. No child should be in prison. In that regard, the Permanent Forum notes the finding in 2022 of the Supreme Court of Western Australia that the extensive solitary confinement and significant reduction in liberty of children, primarily Aboriginal children, was unlawful. The Permanent Forum calls upon Australia to respect the Court decision and remove its reservation to article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Permanent Forum recommends that Member States review and reform their child protection policies and systems to prevent undue removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities.
States, the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations should support the efforts of indigenous peoples to build, articulate and implement their visions of and strategies for development. They should provide adequate funding, technical and institutional support and training to enable indigenous peoples to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and for indigenous peoples to participate effectively in the planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies, programmes and projects
The Permanent Forum is concerned by issues related to land tenure, the collective rights of indigenous peoples, customary rights, land-grabbing and the closure of transhumance corridors. The Permanent Forum therefore recommends that States of the Sahel and the Congo basin establish a legal framework to consolidate their national and local land tenure regimes with a view to resolving conflicts peacefully. In addition, those States should enhance access to justice for the aff ected indigenous pastoralists and provide training for judicial officials on those issues.
Recalling the special theme of its second session, "Indigenous children and youth", the Permanent Forum confirms its commitment to make indigenous children and youth an ongoing part of its work. In so doing, it acknowledges the efforts made by organizations representing indigenous peoples, United Nations bodies, especially the Committee on the Rights of the Child and States, to address the urgent needs of indigenous children and youth, and encourages partners of the Forum towards further collaboration regarding this crucial cross-cutting issue.