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Paragraph Number: 67
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:
Drawing attention to the dramatic changes in the lifestyles of indigenous peoples and the ensuing deterioration of indigenous health due to malnutrition and obesity, including record high rates of diabetes and related illnesses such as hypertension, heart attacks, kidney failure and blindness, the Permanent Forum calls upon WHO, UNICEF, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, WFP and FAO to develop joint strategies to address the problem of diabetes and related non-communicable lifestyle illnesses. Given the alarming prevalence of diabetes among indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum calls upon WHO and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to establish a systematic working relationship with the Permanent Forum and the Inter-Agency Support Group to exchange experiences on health initiatives in the area of treatment and prevention of the illness, especially given their role in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals.
Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 67
Session: 20 (2021)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum urgently recommends that the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization (WHO), in cooperation with the Permanent Forum and other relevant entities, create a permanent working group to evaluate the ongoing situation of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact, and to design, promote and discuss with Governments and other institutions the implementation of urgent measures for the protection of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact.
Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 89
Session: 8 (2009)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recognizes the cultural significance and medical importance of the coca leaf in the Andean and other indigenous regions of South America. It also notes that coca leaf chewing is specifically banned by the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961). The Permanent Forum recommends that those portions of the Convention regarding coca leaf chewing that are inconsistent with the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain their traditional health and cultural practices, as recognized in articles 11, 24 and 31 of the Declaration, be amended and/or repealed.
Area of Work: Health
Addressee: UNICEF
Paragraph Number: 67
Session: 2 (2003)
Full Text:
The Forum urges UNICEF, the lead United Nations agency on children, to adopt a policy relating to indigenous children. The Permanent Forum urges UNICEF to include questions on ethnicity, cultural and tribal affiliation and language in its Demographic and Health and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, in order to obtain disaggregated data on the goals set forth at the World Summit for Children and the health needs of indigenous children.
Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 89
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The goals of the Forum in this area are the promotion of cooperation, the exchange of information and the development of partnerships, as well as to improve coordination by facilitating regular contacts and reports. The Forum intends to address and report on this theme on an annual basis. The Forum, reaffirming its recommendations on health made at its first and second reports, in the spirit of the theme of its third session (Indigenous women), recommends that all relevant United Nations entities, especially WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA, as well as regional health organizations and Governments:
(a)Fully incorporate the principle that health is a fundamental human right in all health policies and programmes, and foster rights-based approaches to health, including treaty rights, the right to culturally acceptable and appropriate services and indigenous women’s reproductive rights, and stop programmes of forced sterilization and abortion, which can constitute ethnic genocide;
(b)Further develop and disseminate information about innovative strategies in health services to indigenous women, informed by indigenous concepts and understanding of health, wellness, healing, illness, disease, sexuality and birthing so as to ensure universal and accessible health-care services for indigenous women and girl children, and make available adequate financial and technical support for comprehensive, community-based, primary health services and health education, incorporating traditional indigenous components;
(c)Train and employ qualified indigenous women to design, administer and manage their own health-care programmes;
(d) Set up monitoring mechanisms for indigenous communities to report abuses and neglect with the health system to national health authorities, and put in place the legal framework to effectively address these issues;
(e) Encourage States to include and accredit traditional, indigenous health practitioners (physicians), including traditional birth attendants (midwives), and integrate them into state health-care systems, and give full recognition to the medicinal knowledge and medicines of these indigenous practitioners;
(f) Augment HIV/AIDS programmes by providing educational materials in indigenous languages and by using specially trained indigenous HIV/AIDS health workers to conduct outreach services and home care to indigenous communities, including voluntary testing for HIV/AIDS;
(g) Ensure that indigenous peoples, especially women, have access to all information relating to their medical treatment and to secure their prior informed consent to medical treatment;
(h) Provide appropriate health services and protection services, including safe houses, to displaced refugee and migrant women and women and girl children victimized by trafficking for prostitution;
(i) Implement the recommendations of the international consultation on health of indigenous peoples, held in Geneva at WHO in 1999, with special emphasis on the recommendations concerning the health of women and girls and the role of women in health care, indigenous knowledge and service provisions;
(j)Develop, in conjunction with indigenous women health providers, programmes to inform and sensitize indigenous women and men about cultural practices which have negative impacts on health, including female genital mutilation, child marriages and violence against women and the girl child in the domestic context, in order to encourage them to take precautions and safeguard the health and well being of the indigenous family;
(k)Ensure that the treatment of diseases is balanced by the promotion of health through the support of physical activity, sports and physical education in order to address escalating health concerns through prevention.
Area of Work: Health
Addressee: Finland, Sweden, Norway
Paragraph Number: 67
Session: 8 (2009)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum notes that various United Nations treaty bodies have repeatedly called on the Governments of Finland and Sweden to clarify and affirm the Sámi people’s rights to land and fishing, including hunting and reindeer grazing rights. The Forum urges Finland and Sweden to take action in accordance with these recommendations, without further delay. The Permanent Forum further calls on Norway to reach an agreement with the Sámi Parliament on the draft mineral act.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: World Health Assembly
Paragraph Number: 67
Session: 21 (2022)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum, bearing in mind the contributions of indigenous peoples’ traditional medicines to the recovery from the pandemic, invites the World Health Assembly to declare an international year of indigenous peoples’ traditional medicines by 2025.
Area of Work: Health
