Indigenous Rights

U.S. Finally Passes Stronger Protections for Women against Abuse

By Carey L. Biron
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday ended more than a year of stonewalling a piece of legislation that for two decades has offered legal protections for women against sexual violence, harassment and abuse.

‘Media Needs an Alliance With Minorities’

By Pavol Stracansky
Amid calls from world leaders for media diversity and plurality to be strengthened to combat a rising tide of extremism and intolerance, media experts have warned that change should not be expected overnight and that governments and states have a crucial role to play in the process.

India Undercuts Tribal Rights

By Ed McKenna
Over a decade ago, the Dongria Kondh tribe – tucked away in the Niyamgiri hills, a mountain range in the eastern Indian state of Orissa – found itself under attack.
IMG_4654EditWeb

Q&A: Building a Post-2015 Global Development Agenda

By Mathieu Vaas
As the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaches, different United Nations agencies are beginning to discuss what the post-2015 Development Agenda will encompass.

Indigenous Youth Step up to Protect Their Roots

By Marzieh Goudarzi
Indigenous youth from some of the world's oldest living cultures are stepping forward to steer their communities past the threat of disappearance and into an age of coexistence with an increasingly globalised world.

Virtually At Sea in the Pacific

By Catherine Wilson
The Pacific Islands have some of the lowest rates of Internet penetration in the world, yet tech-savvy urbanites are behind the emergence of a number of social media sites dedicated to generating public debate and demanding government accountability. However, without real action, online forums speaking truth to power are constrained in impacting political and social reforms in the region.
Native leaders from the Amazon at the meeting of the Congressional working group. Credit: Puinamudt

Native Peoples Say: No Consultations, No Concessions

By Milagros Salazar
Representatives of native communities in the Amazon region of Peru, where the first ever "prior consultation" about a project affecting their territory will be held, have pressured the authorities into promising that their views will be taken into account every step of the way. But the government's word is no longer enough to assuage their mistrust.

In the Land of Gas, the Residents Have None

By Franz Chávez
The 19,000 inhabitants of the municipality of Caraparí, the area supplying a third of Bolivia’s gas exports, do not have access to gas or petrol, six years after the nationalisation of the mega deposit and almost a quarter century after its discovery.

Hydroelectric Project Threatens Chile’s Lake Neltume

By Marianela Jarroud
“This is paradise and they want to destroy it. This has had an enormous psychological impact on us,” says Guido Melinao, leader of the Mapuche indigenous community of Valeriano Cayicul, referring to the Neltume hydroelectric power plant project planned by the Spanish-Italian consortium Endesa-Enel.

Pakistan Tribes Turn Against Army

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
–“We demand an immediate end to the military operation in Khyber Agency because it has not brought any results during the past three years,” says Iqbal Afridi from the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf party. “The military operations are killing the local population while the militants remained unharmed.”

Two Luthiers Emerge From Deep Bolivian Amazon

By Anna Infantas
They belong to the Amazon of Bolivia, where their people, the Moxena nation, are found, and they are brothers. Francisco and Alfonso Ichu Tamo came to this southern city to become the premier makers of musical instruments.

Historic Mapuche Land Conflict Flares Up

By Marianela Jarroud
A string of attacks in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía, where native Mapuche people are struggling for their land rights, puts the spotlight squarely on what analysts call the "supine ignorance" displayed by authorities about the country's history.

Power in Bolivia’s Gas-Rich Chaco Region Thrust into Indigenous Hands

By Rafael Sagarnaga Lopez
Due to the intense political polarisation in the Chaco region, home to Bolivia’s oil and natural gas wealth, three indigenous lawmakers who entered the legislative assembly of the southern department of Tarija as representatives of their people have quickly come to wield decisive power.

Indigenous Chileans Still Fighting Pinochet-Era Highway Project

By Marianela Jarroud
For more than two decades, Mapuche indigenous people in the Chilean region of Araucanía have been fighting the construction of the Ruta Costera (Coastal Highway), a megaproject initially conceived during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) which has already caused significant archeological and cultural losses and damages.

Bolivia’s Ayoreo Indians, Devoured by the City

By Anna Infantas
No one knows exactly when they will show up, but when they do, it’s impossible not to notice them. In one of the busiest street markets in this bustling city in eastern Bolivia, a handful of members of the Ayoreo indigenous community periodically take over a portion of the sidewalk.

Big Landowners Block Rural Development Law in Guatemala

By Danilo Valladares
An “integral rural development law” to promote access to land, employment and other rights for small farmers is bogged down in the Guatemalan Congress due to opposition from large landowners, who see it as an attempt at land reform.

Bolivia’s Tapiete People – a Culture in the Hands of 38 Families

By Natalia Seas Yelma
Three and a half hours away from the nearest town along a dirt road, 38 families are struggling to preserve their land, customs and language in Bolivia’s Gran Chaco region. They are the Tapiete Indians, who refuse to disappear.

Native Communities in Peru Take Charge of Environmental Monitoring

By Milagros Salazar
At the end of every month, with the skill of an environmental engineer, Wilson Sandi prepares a work plan that will be used by Achuar indigenous people, like him, to document the scars left by 40 years of oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon region of Loreto.

Off the Blacklist Doesn’t Imply Improvement in Human Rights in Colombia

By Constanza Vieira
Colombia will be removed from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “blacklist” next year. In exchange, the government of Juan Manuel Santos facilitated a visit to the country by a delegation from the Commission.

Reaching Bolivia’s Native People on the Airwaves

By Franz Chávez
Every morning from 6:00 to 8:00 AM, native people in this sprawling working-class suburb of La Paz, Bolivia listen to the programme broadcast by former education minister Donato Ayma in the Aymara language.

Mining Saps a Thirsty Desert

By Michelle Tolson
The Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in the southern Gobi desert in Mongolia has become a symbol of a looming crisis: a limited water supply that could be exhausted within a decade, seriously threatening the lives and livelihoods of the local population.
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