The Permanent Forum commends UNICEF and UNFPA for their work to combat female genital mutilation practices and urges them to continue their efforts with indigenous peoples and their communities.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the World Intellectual Property Organization facilitating a process, in accordance with the Declaration, to engage with indigenous peoples on matters including intellectual property, genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore.
The Permanent Forum recommends that Member States, owing to the threat of biopiracy and the pharmaceutical industry, develop legislative measures, with the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples, to protect traditional medicine and knowledge, and to secure the rights of indigenous peoples to intellectual property.
The Permanent Forum thanks the Governments of Canada and the United States of America for hosting its 2011 pre-sessional meeting, and thanks the Governments of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Spain, Norway, Denmark and Greenland and China for having hosted previous pre-sessional meetings of the Forum. The Permanent Forum recommends that States that have not yet done so consider hosting future pre-sessional meetings. The Permanent Forum also requests that the Secretariat organize pre-sessional meetings for future sessions of the Forum.
The Permanent Forum requests that its secretariat prepare a report on the implementation of the recommendations made, to be submitted to the Forum at its eleventh session, in 2012. The report should analyse the challenges as well as the associated factors that United Nations agencies and funds, Member States and indigenous peoples’ organizations have faced.
Sexual and gender-based violence increases in settings of conflict. Sexual violence has also been used systematically as a weapon of war against indigenous women. In the light of the particular risks and vulnerabilities of indigenous women and girls relating to sexual and gender-based violence, the Permanent Forum recommends that Governments, local authorities, specialized agencies of the United Nations system and civil society collaborate with indigenous peoples to establish multisectoral and holistic approaches to combat the various forms of violence against women and girls.
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 urges Member States and funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system to implement action to reduce maternal mortality among indigenous women. The Forum recommends that the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women publish a factsheet, in collaboration with the Forum, on indigenous women’s maternal mortality and maternal health, with the aim of reducing maternal mortality and promoting sexual and reproductive health.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women prepare a specific report on the situation of indigenous women’s empowerment, in collaboration with the Forum and indigenous women’s organizations, for submission to the Forum at its seventeenth session.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the intention of the Commission on the Status of Women to make the issue of the empowerment of indigenous women a focus area of its sixty-first session, to be held in 2017. The Forum invites the Bureau of the Commission to consider organizing a half-day session on the issue. The Forum calls upon the Commission to consider the empowerment of indigenous women as a theme in future sessions, pursuant to paragraph 19 of General Assembly resolution 69/2.
Building upon past work of the Permanent Forum with regard to indigenous women, in particular the study on the extent of violence against indigenous women and girls in terms of article 22 (2) of the United Nations Declaration (see E/C.19/2013/9) and the report of the international expert group meeting on combating such violence (see E/2012/43-E/C.19/2012/13) the Forum recommends that States adopt measures aimed at addressing the specific problems of police brutality, systemic police violence and discrimination against indigenous women, as experienced, for example, by indigenous women in Val-d’Or, Canada, Sepur Zarco, Guatemala, and north-east India.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States and the United Nations system, including United Nations country teams, provide support, including funding, for the efforts of indigenous peoples’ institutions to preserve and revitalize their languages, with the particular goal of fluency. Such efforts may include the sharing of positive experiences and the establishment of informal networks or caucuses involved in the promotion and revitalization of indigenous languages, as well as the use of information and communications technology in indigenous languages. It is important that States provide adequate funding for language revitalization and the preservation of cultural heritage as it relates to indigenous languages. In addition, States should facilitate funding for indigenous language projects from external donors, including the private sector, in accordance with law.