The Permanent Forum acknowledges the progress made on its recommendation to FAO and WHO to revise the International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management to include Indigenous Peoples’ views. The Permanent Forum urges FAO and WHO to develop guidance notes on the risk of pesticide use in Indigenous Peoples’ territories, in consultation with Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum is concerned that HIV acquisition rates are higher in Indigenous communities than in the general population. The Permanent Forum encourages the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS to continue its focus on Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum again urges Member States to ensure that Indigenous Peoples are afforded full and effective participation in all planning and policy development to address climate change. Indigenous-led climate change policies incorporate the vital knowledge of Indigenous Peoples for land management and stewardship of natural resources while protecting health, equity, justice and sustainability. Principles of free, prior and informed consent must be followed in the development of all climate change policies and actions.
The Permanent Forum calls upon Member States to put in place specific plans for improving the health of Indigenous Peoples, including the sexual and reproductive health of Indigenous women, with particular attention to the health of Indigenous two-spirit persons, children and nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples, as well as Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation, in initial contact, in remote areas and in other vulnerable situations. The Permanent Forum also recommends that States provide adequate funding to Indigenous Peoples to support and ensure access to Indigenous health care, education and mental health and well-being resources.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the study on Indigenous determinants of health in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (E/C.19/2023/5), presented at its twenty-second session. The Permanent Forum calls upon Member States and United Nations entities, particularly WHO, to adopt indigeneity as an overarching determinant of health, including in relation to the relevant Sustainable Development Goals and in policies and practices across the United Nations system.
The Permanent Forum urges Member States and United Nations entities, in particular the World Health Organization (WHO), to recognize that Indigenous views of human and planetary health must be central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and emphasizes the central need to stabilize and regenerate the biosphere as essential for protecting humanity. The right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, the right to health and development and the rights of Indigenous Peoples must be seen as interconnected and essential to an integrated planetary health governance framework.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the study presented by UNFPA, in collaboration with CHIRAPAQ (Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Perú), entitled “Progress and challenges regarding the recommendations of the Forum on sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender-based violence”. The Permanent Forum invites UNFPA to make efforts to disseminate the findings of the study at the global, regional and country levels among Member States, United Nations mechanisms and indigenous organizations. The Forum also invites UNFPA to engage in concerted dialogue wit h the nine Member States that were part of the study on next steps to put into action the recommendations of the study, and to report to the Forum at its eighteenth session on progress made.
The Permanent Forum reiterates previous recommendations that WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UNFPA, as well as regional health organizations and Governments, fully incorporate a cultural perspective into health policies and programmes and reproductive health services aimed at providing indigenous women with quality health care, including emergency obstetric care, voluntary family planning and skilled attendance at birth. The roles of traditional midwives should be re-evaluated and expanded so that they may assist indigenous women during their reproductive health processes and act as cultural brokers between health systems and indigenous peoples.
Despite this critical role, community-regulated indigenous midwifery is often undermined and actively criminalized, to the detriment of the health of indigenous peoples. To close the gap between indigenous and non -indigenous health outcomes, the practice of indigenous midwifery must be supported by state health policy and integration. The right of indigenous peoples to self-determination extends to their reproductive health, and States should put an end to the criminalization of indigenous midwifery and make the necessary legislative and regu latory amendments to legitimize indigenous midwives who are recognized by their communities as health-care providers. States should also support the education of new traditional indigenous midwives via multiple routes of education, including apprenticeship s and the oral transmission of knowledge.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the WHO End TB Strategy and the Global Partnership to Stop Tuberculosis, in collaboration with UNFPA, PAHO and the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples ’ Issues, organize an expert group meeting on tuberculosis by 2020 to analyse the sociocultural an d economic determinants of health for the prevention, care and treatment of tuberculosis in indigenous communities, with the cooperation of the Forum, in order to ensure the realization of target 3 of Sustainable Development Goal 3. The Forum also recommends the review of the Moscow Declaration to End TB, which considers indigenous peoples to be disproportionately affected by tuberculosis.
The Permanent Forum appreciates the steps taken by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, UNFPA and the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues for the organization of an international workshop on indigenous peoples and HIV/AIDS, and calls on Member States and United Nations entities to contribute to the workshop.
"The Permanent Forum expresses considerable concern with the disparity
between indigenous and national maternal mortality rates in many countries and encourages Member States to incorporate an intercultural approach to sexual and reproductive health services and promoting the inclusion of indigenous health workers. The Permanent Forum invites Member States to seek the support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other relevant agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations system in taking forward this recommendation and in strengthening the disaggregation of data by ethnicity, in the area of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, in the 2020 census round to strengthen the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development."