The Permanent Forum urges UNICEF and UNIFEM to include urban and migrant indigenous women and their children in their relevant studies on violence against women.
The Permanent Forum calls on the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences and the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children to hold regional consultations with indigenous women in Asia, and requests that UNIFEM support such consultations.
The Permanent Forum expresses appreciation to Mr. Michael Dodson for his concept paper on traditional knowledge, and recommends that the paper be widely circulated. The Permanent Forum invites States, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and indigenous peoples and their organizations and academic institutions to submit written comments to the secretariat for consideration at the seventh session of the Permanent Forum. The Permanent Forum welcomes the support and notes that the recommendation in paragraph 24 of the report of the Special Rapporteur states that: “the Permanent Forum should commission a study ... to determine whether there ought to be a shift in the focus on the protection of indigenous traditional knowledge away from intellectual property law to protection via customary law ... The study should consider how indigenous traditional knowledge could be protected at an international level by utilizing customary law, including the extent to which customary law should be reflected, thereby providing guidance to States and, subsequently, protection at national and regional levels”. The Permanent Forum would particularly welcome written submissions addressing the above recommendation. The Permanent Forum re-appoints Mr. Dodson as Special Rapporteur to present a follow-up study on indigenous traditional knowledge, taking into account the written submissions, and to present the report to the seventh session of the Permanent Forum in 2008.
The Permanent Forum, with the assistance of relevant member of the Inter-Agency Support Group, and in collaboration with indigenous experts, will conduct timely technical reviews at critical stages in the negotiations of international standards on the protection of traditional knowledge, such as the international regime on access and benefit-sharing and the deliberations of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), to evaluate consistency and harmonization with existing and developing international legal instruments, standards and arrangements and, in particular, the human rights of indigenous peoples.
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.
The Permanent Forum expresses appreciation to all States, United Nations agencies and foundations that contributed to the Trust Fund on Indigenous Issues, including contributions for the small grants programme for the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People and the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations, and invites States, agencies and foundations to continue contributing generously to the Funds. The Forum urges the Voluntary Fund on Indigenous Populations to give particular support to applications from indigenous peoples from the Pacific to participate in its seventh session in 2008. The Permanent Forum encourages representatives of indigenous peoples’ organizations from the Pacific to make applications to the Fund in order to the attend the seventh session of the Permanent Forum.
The Permanent Forum commends the establishment and achievements of the Regional Indigenous Peoples’ Programme of UNDP in Asia, and calls on UNDP to ensure that the funding of that programme will be increased and that similar programmes will be set up in other regions.
The Permanent Forum appoints Mr. Michael Dodson, a member of the Forum, as a special rapporteur to prepare a draft guide, based on the relevant principles contained in the Declaration on the Rights of INdigenous Peoples, taking into account the provisions of ILO Convention 169 that relate to indigenous land tenure and management arrangements, to assist indigenous peoples, States and United Nations agencies in negotiating indigenous land tenure and management arrangements.
The Permanent Forum recommends that United Nations country teams in Asian countries with indigenous populations, in cooperation with indigenous peoples, formulate a matrix of indicators, benchmarks and milestones to assess the outcomes and results of their policies and programmes relevant to indigenous peoples. Furthermore, the Permanent Forum recommends that United Nations agencies and donor agencies expand their funding and technical assistance to support capacity-building of Asian indigenous peoples’ organizations.
The Permanent Forum expresses appreciation to Mr. Parshuram Tamang and Mr. Yuri Boichenko for their draft questionnaire for United Nations agencies and requests the secretariat of the Permanent Forum to use the questionnaire in seeking information from agencies for its future sessions. The Permanent Forum also supports requests from States that they receive a similar questionnaire and requests the secretariat to carry through this request, in consultation with members of the Permanent Forum.
The Permanent Forum recognizes the role of indigenous parliamentarians in the promotion and protection of indigenous peoples’ rights, and thus recommends increasing their participation in the sessions of the Permanent Forum, adopting regional and national mechanisms to monitor the recommendations and working towards the establishment of particular mechanisms of participation.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the participation at its sixth session of indigenous parliamentarians from, inter alia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Greenland, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and encourages indigenous parliamentarians to continue participating at future sessions in their own capacity, with designated seating arrangements.