Displaying 1 - 12 of 17
Paragraph Number: 115
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:

The Permanent Forum recommends that relevant States, in cooperation with the indigenous peoples concerned, establish indigenous peoples’ centres in urban areas to address their medical needs and provide legal and other forms of assistance.

Area of Work: Health, Economic and Social Development
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: WHO

Paragraph Number: 63
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:

Given the rapid increase in diabetes among indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum calls upon WHO to undertake a pilot study to assess its prevalence among selected indigenous peoples worldwide in the seven indigenous geo-cultural regions.

Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 93
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:

The Forum requests the United Nations Development Group, which includes WHO, to make a report on how it is addressing the Millennium Development Goals, with particular focus on indigenous peoples. The report should identify obstacles and constraints at the state, regional, and global levels, and should make recommendations to address these obstacles. The report should be presented to the Forum at its fourth session.

Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 65
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:

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.

Area of Work: Health, Indigenous Children and Youth
Paragraph Number: 86
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:

The Forum reiterates its health recommendations made at its first and second sessions, in particular those contained in chapter I, section B, paragraphs 63 to 82 of its report on its second session.2

Area of Work: Health

Addressee: UNFPA, UNICEF

Paragraph Number: 62
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:

Reports received by the Permanent Forum indicate that United Nations agencies, notably UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), incorporate indigenous issues into their health programming at the country and regional levels and apply culturally sensitive approaches to health delivery. The Forum encourages those agencies to share their experience in health programming for indigenous peoples with other relevant United Nations agencies working in the field.

Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 92
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:

The Forum recommends that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in conjunction with the Forum, convene an international workshop, with the participation of United Nations agencies and indigenous experts, on indigenous peoples and the human rights to health and culturally appropriate health care.

Area of Work: Health
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: 61
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:

The Permanent Forum calls upon all States to work with indigenous peoples to develop and implement right-to-health indicators, to utilize the findings in the report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to health and to set benchmarks and timelines to ensure that indigenous peoples’ right to health is progressively realized, as required by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and in the Millennium Development Goals.

Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 91
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:

The Forum recommends that the Special Rapporteur on the right to health examine the disparity of health standards for indigenous peoples in developed countries in the light of the fact that United Nations agencies and specialized entities, including WHO, do not undertake health programmes in developed countries.

Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 66
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:

Moreover, since the lack of civil documentation exposes indigenous peoples to abuse and violation of their rights, the Permanent Forum recommends that States, UNICEF, the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) support free and universal civil registration on the basis of free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples.

Area of Work: Health