Indigenous Rights

Museums Taking Stand for Human Rights, Rejecting ‘Neutrality’

By A. D. McKenzie
An exhibition on modern-day slavery at the International Slavery Museum in this northern English town is just one example of a museum choosing to focus on human rights, and being “upfront” about it.

Indigenous People in Brazil’s Amazon – Crushed by the Belo Monte Dam?

By Mario Osava
Ethnocide, the new accusation leveled against the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, brings to light deeper underlying aspects of the conflicts and controversies unleashed by megaprojects in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

New Census Paints Grim Picture of Inequality in India

By Neeta Lal
Despite being Asia’s third-largest economy, positioning itself as a major geopolitical player under a new nationalist government, India's first ever Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) paints a grim picture of poverty and deprivation despite billions of dollars being funneled into state-sponsored welfare schemes.

Earthquakes Don’t Kill, Buildings Do – Or Is It Inequity?

By Robert Stefanicki
70-year-old Chiute Tamang was working in his field when the earth shook on Apr 25. He grabbed a tree. His wife and daughter were inside the house at the time, but managed to run out. In the blink of an eye, the building turned into a heap of stones. They were the lucky ones.

On Kenya’s Coast, a Struggle for the Sacred

By Miriam Gathigah
Travel into the heart of Kenya’s southern Coast Province, nearly 500 km from the capital city of Nairobi, and you will come across one of the planet’s most curious World Heritage Sites: the remains of several fortified villages, revered by the indigenous Mijikenda people as the sacred abodes of their ancestors.

Smart Phones New Tool to Capture Human Rights Violations

By Thalif Deen
The widespread use of digital technology – including satellite imagery, body cameras and smart phones – is fast becoming a new tool in monitoring and capturing human rights violations worldwide.

Opinion: G7 Makes Commitment on Climate … to Climate Chaos

By Lucy Cadena
One of the promises made by the leaders of the world's seven richest nations when they met at Schloss Elmau in Germany earlier this week was an energy transition over the next decades, aiming to gradually phase out fossil fuel emissions this century to avoid the worst of climate change.

Native Communities in Mexico Demand to be Consulted on Wind Farms

By Emilio Godoy
“It hurts us that our land is affected, and the environmental impacts are not even measured. Wind farm projects affect streams and hurt the flora,” said Zapotec Indian Isabel Jiménez, who is taking part in the struggle against the installation of a wind park in southern Mexico.

Indigenous Voices Ignored in Financing Panamanian Dam Project

By Kwame Buist
Indigenous people who would be directly affected by the impact of a hydroelectric project in Panama were not consulted despite national and international human rights obligations to obtain their free, prior and informed consent, according to a just-released report.

Australia’s ‘Stolen Generations’ Not a Closed Chapter

By Silvia Boarini
Every year since 1998, Australia has marked ‘National Sorry Day’ on May 26, a day to remember the tens of thousands of indigenous children who, between the 1890s and 1970s, were forcibly removed from their communities by government authorities and placed into the care of white families or institutions to be assimilated into settler society.

Bougainville: Former War-Torn Territory Still Wary of Mining

By Catherine Wilson
From Arawa, once the capital city of Bougainville, an autonomous region in eastern Papua New Guinea in the southwest Pacific Ocean, a long, winding road leads high up into the Crown Prince Ranges in the centre of the island through impenetrable rainforest.

Minorities Threatened More by Governments than Terrorist Groups, Says Study

By Thalif Deen
In the conflict-ridden Middle East, minority groups continue to be threatened, attacked and expelled from their home countries by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Lessons from an Indian Tribe on How to Manage the Food-Forest Nexus

By Manipadma Jena
Scattered across 240 sq km on the remote Niyamgiri hill range in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, an ancient tribal group known as the Dongria Kondh have earned themselves a reputation as trailblazers.

Opinion: Bangladesh’s Persecuted Indigenous People

By Julia Bleckner
The August 2014 killing of Timir Baran Chakma, an indigenous Jumma activist, allegedly in Bangladeshi military custody, was protested by his supporters. His death, and the failure of justice, like the plight of his people across the Chittagong Hills region, received little international notice.

IACHR Tackles Violence Against Native Peoples in Costa Rica

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
After years of violence against two indigenous groups in Costa Rica, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) demanded that the government adopt measures by May 15 to protect the life and physical integrity of the members of the two communities.

Opinion: Don’t Leave Indigenous Peoples Behind in SDGs

By Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
U.N. member states are meeting throughout the year to finalize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will set the global development agenda for the next 15 years. The goals are supposed to be universal and aspire to “leave no one behind.”

Farmers Fight Real Estate Developers for Kenya’s Most Prized Asset: Land

By Miriam Gathigah
Vegetables grown in the lush soil of this quiet agricultural community in central Kenya’s fertile wetlands not only feed the farmers who tend the crops, but also make their way into the marketplaces of Nairobi, the country’s capital, some 150 km south.

Opinion: A Development Fairytale or a Global Land Rush?

By Karine Jacquemart and Anuradha Mittal
In our work at Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute around access and control over natural resources, we face constant accusations of being anti-development or “Northern NGOs who care more for the trees”, despite working with communities around the world, from Cameroon, to China, to the Czech Republic.

Living the Indigenous Way, from the Jungles to the Mountains

By Stephen Leahy
In the course of human history many tens of thousands of communities have survived and thrived for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Scores of these largely self-sustaining traditional communities continue to this day in remote jungles, forests, mountains, deserts, and in the icy regions of the North. A few remain completely isolated from modern society.

Moving Indigenous Land Rights from Paper to Reality

By Valentina Ieri
Frustrated with decades of marginalisation, and of seeing their rights respected only on paper, Indigenous peoples are calling for major recognition from the international community.

New Anti-Terrorism Law Batters Cameroonians Seeking Secession

By Mbom Sixtus
Cameroon’s government under President Paul Biya is bearing down on a separatist movement fighting for the rights of a minority English-language region, using as its weapon a sweeping new anti-terrorism law introduced at the end of last year.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*