Indigenous Rights

AUSTRALIA: Plan to Tackle Domestic Violence Wins Support

By Stephen de Tarczynski
Kelly Johnson was just 28 when she was murdered by a former boyfriend at her Adelaide home last year. The mother of one was hit on the head with a frying pan and stabbed repeatedly with "startling ferocity", according to Justice Trish Kelly, who handed down a mandatory life sentence to Johnson's killer, Daniel Hall, in February.

AUSTRALIA: Climate Change – Further Threat to Aboriginals

By Neena Bhandari
Climate change will further marginalise Australia’s Aboriginal communities, forcing them out of their traditional lands, destroying their culture and significantly affecting their access to water resources, indigenous rights advocates warn.

BRAZIL: Guarani Suffering Breakdown of Culture, Suicides

By Fabiana Frayssinet
One young indigenous person commits suicide every 10 days on average in the centre-west Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Blamed on the lack of land and opportunities, the proportions of this tragedy have drawn the attention of local and foreign experts.

U.S.: Obama Urged to Sign Native Rights Declaration

By Haider Rizvi
The United States is considering whether to endorse a major U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for the recognition of the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples over their lands and resources.
Acacia savannah in Zanzibar, Tanzania Credit: Public domain

AGRICULTURE: Foreigners Lead Global Land Rush

By Stephen Leahy
More than 20 million hectares of farmland in Africa and Latin America are now in the hands of foreign governments and companies, a sign of a global "land grab" that got a boost from last year's food crisis.
Candidate Rogelia González Credit: Courtesy of Rogelia González

MEXICO: Congress Closed to Indigenous Women

By IPS Correspondents
No indigenous woman has ever held a seat in the Mexican Congress. But two of them, one belonging to the conservative ruling party and the other representing the leftwing opposition, are trying to change that in the July legislative elections.
Western Shoshone leader Carrie Dann. Credit: Courtesy of Carrie Dann

RIGHTS: Indigenous Wisdom Against Climate Change

By Stephen Leahy
While industrialised countries like Canada continue to emit ever-higher levels of greenhouse-effect gases, indigenous peoples around the world are working to survive and adapt to an increasingly dangerous climate.
Projects to reduce deforestation, like this jungle burned for agriculture in southern Mexico, must include recognition of land rights, indigenous people say. Credit: Jami Dwyer

CLIMATE CHANGE: Burden Lies with Rich Polluters, Native People Say

By Stephen Leahy
Already suffering significant impacts from climate change, indigenous peoples at the close of an international summit here rejected the concept of carbon trading and offsets. Many also called for a moratorium on all new oil and gas exploration in their traditional territories and the eventual phase-out of fossil fuels.
Bolivian President Evo Morales addresses a press conference on climate protection. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

ENVIRONMENT: U.N. to Celebrate “Mother Earth Day”

By Haider Rizvi
"Mother Earth is not an object or merchandise. Mother Earth cannot be bought or sold," said Bolivian President Evo Morales, speaking at a heavily-attended news conference here at U.N. headquarters on Earth Day.
Drought and hotter weather are making it very difficult to grow the staple crop of maize in most regions of Mexico. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

CLIMATE CHANGE: Native Peoples Sound Dire Warning

By Stephen Leahy
Humanity's hot carbon breath is not just melting the planet’s polar regions, it is disrupting natural systems and livelihoods around the world, indigenous people reported this week at a global meeting on climate change in Anchorage, Alaska.

ENVIRONMENT: Indigenous Peoples Demand Greater Role in Climate Debate

By Stephen Leahy
While indigenous peoples from around the world are meeting in this Alaskan city to seek a greater role in global climate negotiations, the rapidly warming Arctic is forcing some Inuit villages to be relocated.

Q&A: Indigenous People in Colombia “Have Become a Strong Force”

By Mario Osava
There is a heavy turnover of social movement leaders in Colombia, given the frequency with which they are killed, displaced or forced into exile. And because of the dangers, those who step up to the plate can be considered veritable heroes – one of whom is indigenous leader Aída Quilcué.

EGYPT: Where World War II Now Targets the Indigenous

By Cam McGrath
It has been more than 65 years since the guns fell silent, but the World War II desert battlefields where Allied forces defeated Rommel's Afrika Corps are still claiming lives. Each year the casualty count grows, as Bedouins planting crops, herding livestock and collecting scrap metal are killed or maimed by rusting landmines and munitions hidden beneath the baking sands of Egypt's North West Coast.
Children in Lomas de Manchay Credit: Courtesy of La República

PERU: Where the Poor Pay More for Water

By Ángel Páez
In Lomas de Manchay, an area of slum-covered hills outside of the Peruvian capital that is home to 50,000 people, mainly poor indigenous migrants from the highlands, clean water is worth gold – almost literally.

RIGHTS: Roma Are Scapegoats During Downturn

By IPS Correspondents
On International Roma Day, Wednesday, human rights groups voiced their concern for the discrimination and violence against Roma in European countries.
Eufrosina Cruz Credit: Courtesy of Asociación Quiego

MEXICO: Indigenous Woman on the Offensive

By IPS Correspondents
Two years ago, Eufrosina Cruz was kept from running for mayor of her home village by the "traditions and customs" of her indigenous community in southern Mexico, just because she is a woman.

COLOMBIA: Growing International Support for Peace

By Mario Osava
The Nasa indigenous people who live in southwestern Colombia risked their very lives when they took it upon themselves to blow up munitions and weapons they discovered on their lands.

NICARAGUA: Caribbean Women Face Double Discrimination

By José Adán Silva
The first criminal prosecution for racial discrimination in Nicaragua, in response to a complaint brought by a woman lawmaker in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), has focused attention on the segregationist treatment of indigenous and Afro-Caribbean women in the Caribbean coastal regions.

RIGHTS-BURMA: Junta Lets UN Continue Helping Muslim Rohingyas

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
For now, the United Nations’ refugee agency has been given breathing room to operate in a western corner of military-ruled Burma, where humanitarian programmes offer some comfort to the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority.

BRAZIL: Landmark Ruling Confirms Indian Reservation

By Fabiana Frayssinet
Chanting "Anna Pata, Ana Yan" (Our Land, Our Mother), members of indigenous organisations and activists celebrated a Brazilian Supreme Court ruling Thursday that confirmed the borders of a huge indigenous reservation in the Amazon jungle and set an important precedent for future land disputes.
Teenage girls preparing for a job. Credit: Courtesy of Hogar Santa Librada.

PARAGUAY: The Lot of Domestics – Unceasing Work that Goes Unnoticed

By Natalia Ruiz Diaz
Olga is 39 and María is just 14, but both of them are looking for the same thing while they stay at a centre run by missionary sisters in the Paraguayan capital: a position as a live-in domestic.
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