The Permanent Forum encourages the Commission for Social Development to consider indigenous peoples’ issues at the fifty-sixth session of the Commission as part of its agenda related to the 2017-2018 priority theme “Strategies for eradicating poverty to achieve sustainable development for all”.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF design, in partnership with other relevant United Nations agencies, a protocol for emergency situations resulting from natural disasters to ensure that, in cases of emergency, there are no violations of the human rights of indigenous peoples, especially indigenous youth, children and women, owing to forced relocation.
The Permanent Forum recommends that UNICEF continue to gather data on the issue of children and migration and information on the effects of migration on children, recognizing in particular the situation of indigenous children, the risks of serious exploitation, such as trafficking in human beings for various purposes, and the restoration of rights to victims and vulnerable children, such as street children, through all country-level programmes.
The Permanent Forum decides to authorize a three-day international expert group workshop on indigenous peoples’ rights, corporate accountability and the extractive industries, and requests that the results of the meeting be reported to the Forum at its eighth session, in 2009. The report of that workshop can feed into the eighteenth and nineteenth sessions of the Commission on Sustainable Development, which will address the themes of mining, chemicals, waste management and sustainable consumption and production patterns, and contribute to the review by the eighteenth session of the Commission.
In accordance with article 16 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, indigenous peoples have the right to full freedom of expression, including the right to establish their own media in their own languages. The Permanent Forum is concerned that indigenous peoples of Latin America have been criminalized for the establishment of community radio stations and urges Member States to protect the rights of indigenous communicators
The Forum 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, incarceration, labour and other relevant areas. The Forum notes the need for new indicators to be developed by the United Nations that will specifically target those problems, and in that regard invites UNICEF to develop such new indicators and share them with other entities of the United Nations system, especially UNESCO.
The Permanent Forum calls upon the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity to work in partnership with other members of the Inter-Agency Support Group and donors to organize regional workshops for the purposes of information exchange and capacity-building among Governments, indigenous peoples and local communities and other stakeholders with regard to the proposed international regime on access and benefit-sharing. In addition, the secretariat is called upon to provide financial support for indigenous networks to disseminate information, in appropriate and accessible languages, and through appropriate media, to indigenous communities on this issue.
The Permanent Forum urges the Governments of Canada and the United States to eliminate all assimilation policies that further exacerbate the economic and other disparities between indigenous peoples and the rest of the population.
The Permanent Forum also recommends to Member States that the development agenda beyond 2015 recognize, protect and strengthen indigenous peoples’ collective rights, in particular the right to land, territories and natural resources.
The Forum notes that there is a need for capacity-building in national and local government as well indigenous communities in the areas within the Forum’s mandate, and recommends that various parts of the United Nations system, including the International Labour Organization and the secretariat of the Forum, cooperate to provide technical assistance in that regard at the request of Governments and indigenous communities.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the study entitled “Free, prior and informed consent: a human rights-based approach” (A/HRC/39/62), prepared by the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It encourages Member States, United Nations entities, including the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank, regional development banks, the private sector, civil society organizations and other stakeholders, to use the study as guidance for understanding the principle of free, prior and informed consent when working on issues of concern to indigenous peoples. The Forum also encourages indigenous peoples to use the study to guide the development of their own community protocols on free, prior and informed consent for engaging with these stakeholders.
The Permanent Forum recognizes that as the global economy promises to “build back better” from the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that international financial institutions, including the World Bank, work in close consultation with indigenous peoples and invest in their communities. Indigenous peoples are partners in restarting the global economy while also maintaining their position given to them by birth as stewards of Mother Earth.