Indigenous Rights

'Property Rights' competition poster. Credit: Ashoka

LATIN AMERICA: Competition for Best Land Access Projects

By Marcela Valente
Poor indigenous and peasant farmers who have developed initiatives to gain access to land have been invited to take part in a global competition that will award prizes for innovative, effective approaches to the struggle for property rights.

Migrant Workers in Mexico Left to Hoe Their Own Row

By Emilio Godoy
Every year since 1975, Castro Solano has left his home in the town of Tlapa de Comonfort, in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, to work in other parts of the country as a seasonal farm labourer.

Canada Seeks to Drop Native Peoples from New Biodiversity Pact

By Stephen Leahy
Blame Canada if countries fail to agree to a new binding treaty to curb the rapid loss of plant, animal and species that form the intricate web of life that sustains humanity. That is the view of indigenous representatives from Canada in response to a late night move by the Canadian delegation to strike a reference to indigenous peoples' rights at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) members' conference here.
Moriana Hernández at the seminar on Education: Beyond the Goals Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

LATIN AMERICA: And Now For Non-Sexist Education

By Milagros Salazar
Women in Latin America have broken down barriers in education, and in several countries have more years of education than men. But the task now is to make sure that education reduces, rather than fuels, inequality between men and women.
Protesters in Nagoya demand a fair and equitable access and benefit-sharing protocol. Credit: Stephen Leahy/IPS

North-South Divide Again Clouds Biodiversity Talks

By Stephen Leahy
The accelerating destruction of natural habitats will take millions of years to recover from, scientists have warned. This may be the last chance to apply the brakes, Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, reminded delegates representing the 193 member countries of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Presentation of report on indigenous people in Mexico Credit: Courtesy of UNDP Mexico

Millennium Goals Far Off for Mexico’s Indigenous Population

By Emilio Godoy
It is unlikely that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of anti-poverty targets adopted by the international community, will be met for Mexico's indigenous people, a new United Nations report says.
Members of Anta Women's Association heading to a meeting. Credit: Courtesy of Pierre Yves Gimet

PERU: Women Sterilised Against Their Will Seek Justice, Again

By Ángel Páez
Poor, rural, Quechua-speaking women in the Peruvian province of Anta who were victims of a forced sterilisation programme between 1996 and 2000 have filed a new lawsuit in their continuing struggle for justice.
Gaiashkibos, ILRC board member, represented Lac Courte Oreilles Chippewa at the U.S. State Department consultation on the UN Indigenous Declaration. Credit: Courtesy of Ginny Underwood/ILRC

U.S. Weighs Endorsing Indigenous Rights Declaration

By IPS Correspondents
Just over three years after having voted against it at the United Nations, the United States is in the process of reviewing its position on the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

MALAYSIA: Battle Over Indigenous Groups’ Land Rights Shaping Up

By Baradan Kuppusamy
As the tabling in Parliament of a proposed law affecting their ancestral land draws near, Malaysia’s Orang Asli or ‘original people’ are gearing up anew for moves to challenge it.

EGYPT: Cornered Bedouin Play the Border Card

By Adam Morrow
Since June, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has witnessed an unusual flurry of local crises. The peninsula shares a border with both the Gaza Strip and Israel, and is inhabited mostly by the Bedouin tribe.

ECUADOR: Social Movements to Go Ahead with Int’l Meetings Despite Crisis

By Gonzalo Ortiz
"What lies ahead in Colombia is an increase in the number of refugees and displaced persons, while in Guatemala and Mexico people are going to continue leaving their countries in difficult conditions in which they face dangers to their lives," said Nelsy Lizarazu, one of the spokespersons for the Fourth World Social Forum on Migration.
Soldiers harassing indigenous women in Guerrero. Credit: Courtesy of Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre

MEXICO: Native Women Raped by Soldiers Find Justice at Regional Court

By Emilio Godoy
"I dream of returning to my community and for everything to be normal again, although that won't be easy," Valentina Rosendo, one of two indigenous women who found justice at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, told IPS.
Inocencia Chipana shows her coffee beans outside the cooperative's warehouse. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

PERU: Women Farmers Dream in Organic Flavours of Coffee

By Milagros Salazar
It's Saturday and the women hurry in to the cooperative's warehouse in this rural town in southeastern Peru with their huge bags of coffee beans on their backs. Some come on their own, others are accompanied by their husbands or children. But they have all hiked long distances from their farms in the mountains where they grow some of the world's top organic specialty coffee.

CHILE: Society’s Incomprehension Fuels Mapuche Hunger Strike

By Daniela Estrada
As concern grows for the health and lives of 38 Mapuche prisoners on a hunger strike in different prisons in southern Chile, IPS consulted academics about the problems underlying the conflict.

MIDEAST: Homeless Bedouin Take On the State

By IPS Correspondents
The pukk...pukk ...pukk of a generator wired into the engine of a small truck punctures the silence of the desert. A man folds the bottom of his long yellow galabiya robe, tucking it into his blue jeans. He takes a plank of wood from the back of the truck and carries it over to a younger man who is sawing other planks.

MEXICO: Bicentennial Nothing to Celebrate, Say Indigenous Peoples

By Daniela Pastrana
"I don't understand why we should celebrate [Independence]. There will be no freedom in Mexico until repression against indigenous peoples is eliminated," says Sadhana, whose name means "moon" in the indigenous Mazahua language.

Mexican Activist Wins Prestigious RFK Prize

By Jim Lobe and Emilio Godoy
An anthropologist and human rights defender who has worked for years with the indigenous people in one of Mexico's poorest and most marginalised regions has been awarded one of the world's most important human rights prizes.

Biodiversity Talks Bog Down over Genetic Resources

By Aprille Muscara
While officials meeting in Montreal, Canada failed to finalise a key protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Tuesday, biodiversity is scheduled to be at the top of Wednesday's agenda of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

RIGHTS-CHILE: No Dialogue in Mapuche Conflict

By Daniela Estrada
The Chilean government is pushing through legal reforms in an attempt to bring to an end a nearly two month hunger strike by 34 Mapuche indigenous prisoners. But it is failing to address two critical aspects of the conflict: the lack of effective dialogue and a failure to recognise it as a political problem.
These forests in the Cuzco area will be flooded if the Inambari dam is built. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

Brazilian Dam Would Put Peruvian Jungle Under Water

By Milagros Salazar
Seen from up high, the route to Puente Inambari looks like a green serpent -- long, robust and sinuous. The Amazon jungle that dominates this landscape will be underwater if one of the largest hydroelectric dams in Peru (and all Latin America) is built.
Hilaria Supa in front of signboard of Congress Credit: Virgilio Grajeda/IPS

PERU: Quechua Congresswoman Fights Discrimination in Education

By Ángel Páez
Hilaria Supa has broken down many barriers in her life. Now she has overcome another one, in an unprecedented achievement: this Quechua indigenous woman who never went to school is today chair of the congressional education committee in Peru.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*