The Permanent Forum recommends that States, United Nations agencies and other intergovernmental organizations and bilateral donors support the promotion and full and effective participation of indigenous women in decision-making spheres at all levels, including in administration and civil service, government action, government bodies, political parties, the judiciary and trade unions and that leadership and training processes be considered as pillars for such participation.
The Permanent Forum recommends that United Nations agencies convene a high-level meeting with representatives of indigenous women to review the commitments and actions for securing the human rights of indigenous women highlighted in articles 21, 22 and 41 of the Declaration.
The Forum recommends that the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) and the bureau of the fifty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women include indigenous women as experts on violence against women in the interactive panels and guarantee the participation of indigenous women in the process of preparation for and during the fifty-seventh session of the Commission.
The Permanent Forum recognizes the urgent need to increase commitment to the health of Indigenous women globally, as their health needs are often underserved and they lack culturally appropriate care, including as a result of the criminalization of traditional childbirth practices. The Forum urges Member States and United Nations entities to collaborate in developing programmes and allocating funds that prioritize the health of, and midwifery services for, Indigenous Women; and in increasing the visibility of the situation with regard to the health of Indigenous women through more disaggregated data. The Forum calls for the revision of discriminatory laws affecting Indigenous women. The Forum invites the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Children’s Fund to partner in identifying and documenting good practices of culturally appropriate health interventions from their work at the country level, including supporting Indigenous women and girls in exercising their sexual and reproductive rights. The Forum requests that the entities compile a comprehensive progress report, to be submitted at the 2025 session of the Forum.
The Permanent Forum urges Member States and funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system to implement actions to strengthen the leadership and political participation of indigenous women.
The Permanent Forum recommends, in paragraph 64 of the report, that the relevant United Nations entities should “conduct a study, in partnership with indigenous peoples’ organizations, that documents the linkage between environmental violence, including the operations of extractive industries, chemical pollution and the destruction of the indigenous habitat, and the sexual and reproductive health of indigenous peoples, as well as issues pertaining to sexual exploitation, trafficking of indigenous girls and sexual violence, with concrete recommendations on protection measures”.
States are urged to allocate budgets in order to implement quality services to reduce maternal mortality and ensure indigenous women’s access to reproductive health services.
To ensure that the concerns and priorities of indigenous women are properly taken into account, the Forum urges States:
a. To take concrete steps to increase the participation of indigenous women in governance and decision-making structures at all levels;
b. To clearly identify and define the issues and needs of indigenous women, taking into account regional and local cultural differences;
c. To develop and strengthen structures and mechanisms for the advancement of indigenous women within the wider agenda for the advancement of women; to clearly define their mandate by taking into account the holistic and cross-cutting nature of indigenous women’s issues; to allocate appropriate resources to those institutions; and to provide support from the national political leadership to those structures;
d. To ensure the implementation of international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, regarding indigenous women, and to integrate those instruments into the formulation of a coherent national public policy for indigenous women (including legal frameworks, budget allocations and specific programmes and projects addressing indigenous women’s issues);
e. To ensure equal access of indigenous women to decision-making and governmental bodies, political parties, judiciary, trade unions etc.;
f. To lend support to NGOs (both international and national) dealing with issues involving indigenous women;
g. To increase indigenous women’s capacity for decision-making and political participation, and to ensure that adequate numbers of indigenous women are placed in positions of political leadership as well as in governance and public administration.
The Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, included indigenous women among those who had encountered particular barriers to full equality and advancement, both as women and as members of their communities. The review and appraisal of the Beijing Platform for Action acknowledged that indigenous women continued to face many obstacles and challenges, which included multiple forms of discrimination based on gender, race and ethnicity, as well as the impact of globalization and environmental degradation.
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 Forum recommends that the special theme of its third session be "Indigenous women".
The Permanent Forum calls upon States to revise national public policies and programmes to include a culturally appropriate perspective, in particular in policies E/2024/43 E/C.19/2024/8 24-07820 17/28 and programmes for reproductive health services so that Indigenous women can receive quality health services.