The Permanent Forum acknowledges the existence of gender-diverse Indigenous Peoples, including two-spirit peoples, worldwide, and calls upon the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples to ensure that two -spirit Indigenous Peoples are not prevented from participating in United Nations processes.
The Permanent Forum reiterates the recommendation it made at its twenty-second session that Member States ratify and uphold the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on a communications procedure. The Forum expresses deep concern over the high incidences of suicide, trauma from harsh incarceration conditions, and adverse experiences in out-of-home care affecting Indigenous children and adolescents in Australia and globally.
The Permanent Forum recognizes the history of the placement of Indigenous children in boarding and residential schools without free, prior and informed consent, where there have been dramatically grave negative impacts on the well-being and identity development of Indigenous students, on their families, and on the communities and cultures of Indigenous Peoples in all sociocultural regions. The Forum recommends that States find mechanisms to redress the harms caused by boarding and residential schools, and engage in effective reconciliation efforts. With respect to French Guiana specifically, the Forum calls upon the Government of France to establish a truth commission to investigate the conditions of boarding and residential schools in France and its overseas territories. The Government of France should adopt measures for healing, reparation and rehabilitation. The commission should guarantee gender equality in terms of inclusion and ensure the full participation of the Indigenous Peoples affected.
Urgent transformational actions by States and other development actors for Indigenous Peoples must be based on a human rights framework enabling the identification of the root causes of inequality and providing mechanisms to tackle systemic discrimination and racism and must contribute to reforming discriminatory laws and policies and strengthening the accountability of States, including ensuring democratic space for all.
The Permanent Forum urges the World Intellectual Property Organization, UNESCO, the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and other relevant United Nations entities to align their internal policies, within their respective mandates, so as to recognize and protect the collective intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples in respect of their creations, discoveries, traditional knowledge and knowledge of biodiversity. The Permanent Forum invites the above-mentioned United Nations entities to report back to future sessions on the progress made in that regard.
The Permanent Forum invites the United Nations Global Compact to lead a study on how the human rights of indigenous peoples can be integrated into the model guidance for stock exchanges when reporting on environmental, social and governance information for their market, and report on its progr ess to the Permanent Forum at its twenty-second session, to be held in 2023.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the “International Conference on Biological and Cultural Diversity: Diversity for Development and Development for Diversity” (8-10 June 2010, Montreal, Canada) as a useful dialogue on the interface of diversities and development and notes its goal to consider a future collaborative programme of work between the Secretariat of the Conference on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), other relevant agencies, including the Forum and relevant indigenous organizations and non-governmental organizations, and decides to send the Chair of the Forum to report on the outcomes of the ninth session of the Permanent Forum regarding the theme.
The Permanent Forum welcomes national engagement of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with Brazil, Finland, Mexico, New Zealand and Sweden on projects related to, among others, the development of national action plans for the implementation of indigenous peoples’ rights, processes related to land demarcation and land titling, and facilitating the repatriation of sacred ceremonial objects. The Forum highlights the agreement facilitated by the Expert Mechanism among the Museum of World Culture in Sweden, the Yaqui people in Mexico and the United States of America on the repatriation of the Maaso Kova as a commendable best practice. The Forum encourages States and indigenous peoples to build on the successful country engagement practices and avail themselves of the Expert Mechanism’s unique analytical capacity and potential to support dialogue between indigenous peoples and Governments.
The Forum welcomes resolution 49/7 of the Commission on the Status of Women, entitled "Indigenous women beyond the ten-year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action", adopted in March 2005, and recommends to the United Nations system and Governments to implement that resolution
The Forum urges indigenous organizations to make more effective use of existing international human rights monitoring instruments, such as the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and to bring communications to their attention regarding claims of violence of different forms against indigenous women, to ensure States take steps to end the persistent and unaddressed violence, including murders and disappearances of indigenous women.
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 recommends that Member States formulate evidence- based policies, long-term strategies and regulatory frameworks, in cooperation with indigenous peoples, to ensure their support and the protection and revitalization of indigenous languages, including adequate, sustained support for bilingual, mother- tongue education. The Forum also recommends that States facilitate the mainstreaming of indigenous languages. Allowing indigenous peoples to gain access to health care and other public services in their own languages will help to ensure their overall well-being.