UNPFII25
Intervention on Agenda Item 5 E: Item 5 (d): Human rights dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; annual review of progress on the implementation of general recommendation No. 39 (2022)
Jo Ann Guillao, Indigenous Peoples Rights International
Thank you, Chair, and greetings to all in attendance from Indigenous Peoples Rights International.
Please allow me to start by highlighting the 25th anniversary of the creation of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. We also honour the past and present Rapporteurs, while also stressing the enduring need for the support for the mandate. We emphasize the need for support for country visits, which allow the Rapporteur to directly hear from Indigenous Peoples, Governments and others and provide specific and actionable recommendations to advance Indigenous Peoples’ rights. We call on States to increase support for the mandate, so it has necessary resources for missions and other work.
Regarding the monitoring of CEDAW’s General Recommendation No. 39 on the rights of Indigenous women and girls. We welcome attention to this key general recommendation and its inclusion in the agenda of the Forum. However, we believe that all would benefit from additional guidance on how such monitoring should take place and on what basis. This includes how the Forum may promote dialogue with CEDAW itself and promote the general recommendation within the UN system and specialized agencies more generally, including via the country offices of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Therefore, we recommend that the Forum adopts a recommendation to commission a study on how it may promote and enhance monitoring of the implementation of CEDAW General Recommendation No. 39. We urge that this be done in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples and especially with Indigenous women’s organizations, such as FIMI, and pledge our support to any efforts to this end.
IPRI was founded to combat the increasing levels of criminalization faced by Indigenous Peoples in all regions of the world. As the Forum 2024 paper on criminalization states this includes criminalization of the exercise of international guaranteed rights and criminalization of protests violations of those rights. We call on the Forum to support implementation of the recommendations in that report and to continue to devote attention to criminalization, including in its dialogue with the members of the UN system.
We also recommend that the Forum and the Special Rapporteur pay attention to Indigenous Peoples confronting arbitrary detention, imprisonment and judicial harassment for the defence and exercise of their rights, including through dedicated studies on these issues. Finally, I note that IPRI intends to hold an international conference on Indigenous Peoples and Criminalization in 2027 as part of marking the 20th year anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Thank you.
