The Permanent Forum recommends that all States apply the principles of general comment No. 11 (2009) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, entitled “Indigenous children and their rights under the Convention”.
The Permanent Forum calls upon States that have created special national committees on the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People to cooperate more effectively with it, and would welcome invitations to attend activities of such national committees. The Permanent Forum encourages those States that have not yet done so to establish national committees on the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.
Member States must urgently address violence against indigenous peoples, including State violence, gender-based violence, forced assimilation and forced child removals, discrimination in the justice system and other forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on gender, religion, disability, age and LGBTIQ identity. The Forum encourages the Expert Mechanism, at its earliest convenience, to engage with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, and with the participation of indigenous peoples, regarding the removal of indigenous children.
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 recommends that States provide financial support to the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples to facilitate the participation of indigenous youth in key United Nations meetings and processes most relevant to indigenous issues.
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.