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.
"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."
The Permanent Forum also urges States to fund and deliver training in suicide prevention and mental health awareness to all teaching and non-teaching staff in all schools attended by indigenous children. The development of localized training programmes adapted to each culture consistent with articles 11, 14, 15 and 31 should be encouraged.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) advance data and research on the challenges that indigenous women and girls face in realizing their right to bodily autonomy and the right to be free from violence, including reproductive coercion and in birthing practices. Furthermore, the Permanent Forum invites UNFPA to prepare a study on indigenous women’s bodily autonomy, with the participation of indigenous women, and to present its findings at the twenty-third session of the Permanent Forum, to be held in 2024.
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 Forum invites UNDP and the Statistical Branch of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs to present a report at the 2004 session of the Forum, setting forth the progress made to date on the Millennium Development Goals, with special focus on alleviating poverty and its affects on indigenous peoples and communities.
The Forum urges WHO, in implementing the outlined global strategy on health of marginalized ethnic populations, to gather data and extend programme services to indigenous peoples based on criteria relating to ethnicity, cultural or tribal affiliation and language.
The Permanent Forum, reaffirming the recommendations on health made at its first, second and third sessions, further recommends that all relevant United Nations entities, especially 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, 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. In the latter context, 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 the indigenous communities’ values and world views
The Forum recommends that the Global Fund review their funding strategy in order to include access by indigenous non-governmental organizations and health providers for community-based culturally appropriate HIV/AIDS programmes.
Noting the widespread malnutrition among indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum urges the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to ensure that all interventions by those organizations aimed at reducing this problem in indigenous communities are based on assessments of the structural causes of the problem, including access to land and availability of natural resources. Moreover, methods of interventions should be sensitive to the social fabric and respectful of indigenous peoples’ models of development.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction take the lead, in collaboration with OHCHR, UNFPA and WHO, in conducting an initial study on the global scope of past forced sterilization programmes of indigenous peoples and determine whether such programmes continue to exist, and report to the Forum at its nineteenth session on the progress made.
The Permanent Forum calls for the implementation on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which gives clear guidance to States on the need for them to minimize childhood exposure to toxic chemicals through water, food, air and other sources of exposure. It is critical that environmental regulators be educated specifically regarding article 24 of the Convention.