A/HRC/EMRIP/2019/2
in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, established by the migration of the Aymara (76 per
cent) and Quechan (9 per cent) peoples.
21.
Underlying discrimination against and inequality of indigenous peoples also plays a
role in the structural factors which can lead to migration, such as inequality in access to
health, education, housing, employment and land. In Guatemala, for every quetzal invested
in the non-indigenous population, the State invests only 45 cents in indigenous peoples,
despite the fact that the indigenous population is 41 per cent. 19
22.
The movement of indigenous peoples internally and across international borders is
supported by the Declaration, in particular articles 3, 4 and 5 on self-determination and
article 36 on the right to maintain their cultural ties with their communities and to trade in
goods and services across borders. Articles 12 and 27 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, on the right to movement within the State and indigenous
peoples’ right to enjoy their own culture, religion, and language, in community with the
other members of their group, read in conjunction with the right to self-determination in
article 1, also reinforce the view that the specificities of indigenous peoples’ way of life and
culture often require some level of mobility, for which there may be multiple reasons.
C.
Causes of forced displacement and migration
1.
Non-recognition
23.
Some States fail to recognize indigenous peoples at all, which results in the
inadequacy of legal protections for them and their lands and acts as both a cause and
consequence of displacement. Even in some countries that refer to indigenous peoples by
other names, including the “hill people” in Thailand, “tribes” or “ethnic minorities” in India
and Bangladesh or “small numbered people” in the Russian Federation, the absence of
recognition as indigenous peoples obscures and weakens their rights, favouring migration.
24.
Non-recognition of indigenous land rights, including occupation and titling, is an
underlying cause for dispossession, displacement and migration. 20 The failure to recognize
indigenous peoples’ rights to traditional lands can also lead to a lack of basic services such
as in the Negev, in Israel, where the Bedouin live in “unrecognized villages” lacking
services (see A/HRC/18/35/Add.1). Even in States where community rights are recognized
in the Constitution, unless those rights are protected by enabling laws, the rights to live and
practise a livelihood in the forest can be quickly eroded when land becomes a commodity.
In the Russian Federation, some indigenous peoples fear that a law on “The Far East
hectare”, allocating one hectare of land to all citizens, may deprive them of their land. 21 In
Brazil, despite the recognition in the 1988 Federal Constitution of the right to traditional
land, demarcations are pending and indigenous peoples are still confined in reservations,
such as the Guarani-Kaiowá people in Mato Grosso do Sul.
2.
Commercial activities and land policies
25.
Today, commercial activities, including energy projects, megaprojects for the
production of food for export, fracking and the extraction of minerals, gases, oil and water
can negatively impact indigenous peoples’ land, compelling them to migrate. 22 The
expansion of large-scale activities, such as the cultivation of sugar cane and palm oil,
extensive livestock breeding, metal and non-metallic mining and hydroelectric have all
been identified as contributing to displacement. 23 Indigenous peoples in Malaysia and
Indonesia have lost forestlands to palm oil plantations, 24 and in Ethiopia infrastructure
development was said to threaten to displacing an estimated 1.5 million pastoralists, such as
19
20
21
22
23
24
Guatemala submission.
Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, advice No. 2 (A/HRC/18/42, annex).
Yakukia submission.
UNICEF Australia.
Guatemala submission.
Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact submission.
7