Outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the General
Assembly known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples
A/RES/69/2
12. We recognize the importance of indigenous peoples’ health practices and their
traditional medicine and knowledge.
13. We commit ourselves to ensuring that indigenous individuals have equal
access to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. We also
commit ourselves to intensifying efforts to reduce rates of HIV and AIDS, malaria,
tuberculosis and non-communicable diseases by focusing on prevention, including
through appropriate programmes, policies and resources for indigenous individuals,
and to ensure their access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights
in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on
Population and Development, 4 the Beijing Platform for Action 5 and the outcome
documents of their review conferences.
14. We commit ourselves to promoting the right of every indigenous child, in
community with members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to
profess and practise his or her own religion or to use his or her own language.
15. We support the empowerment and capacity-building of indigenous youth,
including their full and effective participation in decision-making processes in
matters that affect them. We commit ourselves to developing, in consultation with
indigenous peoples, policies, programmes and resources, where relevant, that target
the well-being of indigenous youth, in particular in the areas of health, education,
employment and the transmission of traditional knowledge, languages and practices,
and to taking measures to promote awareness and understanding of their rights.
16. We acknowledge that indigenous peoples’ justice institutions can play a
positive role in providing access to justice and dispute resolution and contribute to
harmonious relationships within indigenous peoples’ communities and within
society. We commit ourselves to coordinating and conducting dialogue with those
institutions, where they exist.
17. We commit ourselves to supporting the empowerment of indigenous women
and to formulating and implementing, in collaboration with indigenous peoples, in
particular indigenous women and their organizations, policies and programmes
designed to promote capacity-building and strengthen their leadership. We support
measures that will ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous women
in decision-making processes at all levels and in all areas and eliminate barriers to
their participation in political, economic, social and cultural life.
18. We commit ourselves to intensifying our efforts, in cooperation with
indigenous peoples, to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence and
discrimination against indigenous peoples and individuals, in particular women,
children, youth, older persons and persons with disabilities, by strengthening legal,
policy and institutional frameworks.
19. We invite the Human Rights Council to consider examining the causes and
consequences of violence against indigenous women and girls, in consultation with
the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the
Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and other special procedures
mandate holders within their respective mandates. We also invite the Commission
_______________
4
Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5–13 September 1994
(United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex.
5
Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4–15 September 1995 (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.
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