In the discussion on reconciliation and intergenerational trauma, there was agreement that healing requires a return to culture and a relationship with the land. The Permanent Forum recommends that Governments support programmes led by indigenous peoples to address intergenerational trauma as a way of moving towards true reconciliation.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the Regional Initiative on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Development of UNDP and, in particular, the pilot projects on gathering disaggregated data in the Philippines and Nepal. The Permanent Forum also recommends that the Regional Indigenous Peoples’ Programme continue this work in other countries.
The Forum on Indigenous Issues is deeply concerned that particular problems and discrimination are faced by indigenous children and youth, including in the areas of education, health, culture, extreme poverty, mortality, sexual exploitation, militarization, displacement, incarceration, labour and others
The Forum welcomes the participation of the Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in the high-level panel and dialogue on indigenous children and youth held during its second session, and expresses the hope that that will lead to enhanced monitoring and promotion of the rights of indigenous children at the national and international levels. The Forum recommends that the Chairman of the Committee inform the next meeting of the Chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies of the results of the high-level panel and dialogue. The Forum recommends that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights transmit the results of the discussion of the Committee to the Forum at its third session.
The United Nations Children's Fund should initiate country-specific situation analyses of indigenous youth and children through field offices in countries with indigenous communities and transmit such situation analyses to the Forum
Follow the principle of free, prior and informed consent at all levels and take into account both the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics as established by the Statistical Commission and provisions on human rights and fundamental freedoms and data protection regulations and privacy guarantees including respect for confidentiality. For indigneous peoples living in voluntary isolation, data-collection exercises should not be used as a pretext for establishing forced contact
Calling attention to the high rates of suicide among indigenous youth in some countries, the Permanent Forum reiterates its call for States and relevant national aboriginal health bodies to convene a meeting to assess the root causes of indigenous youth suicide and to formulate preventive strategies. The Forum reiterates its call on UNICEF and WHO to convene a meeting on youth suicide.
The Forum recommends that both States and indigenous peoples’ organizations consider the inclusion of youth representatives in their delegations attending the annual session of the Forum.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF coordinate its activities and operations with the United Nations Programme on Youth, the secretariat of the Forum and the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus to ensure the participation of indigenous youth in the upcoming high-level meeting on youth.
The Millennium Campaign should raise awareness about the Millennium Development Goals and indigenous peoples, providing space for indigenous youth to express their views and share experiences related to Millennium Development Goals issues, enable young indigenous people to interact with their national leaders, and facilitate networking between youth groups to crystallise new projects. The campaigns should include several elements including school-based outreach, national conferences, local workshops, media activities, including phone-in radio programs and televised debates, essay and expression contests and service days
The Forum decides to form a working group, including experts on statistics, to set directions for future statistical work, including that of the United Nations Statistics Division, and also decides that representatives from the Forum shall participate in scientific meetings to improve statistics in this area of work, such as the upcoming meeting sponsored by the International Association of Official Statisticians meeting, to be held in New Zealand on 14 and 15 April 2005, on the theme "Measuring small and indigenous populations".
The Forum also decides to give ongoing priority to two other cross-cutting issues: a. Data collection and segregation as a follow-up of recommendations by the technical workshop on data collection; b. Human rights. In collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.