E/2018/43 E/C.19/2018/11 42. The Permanent Forum recommends that agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations system, in collaboration with indigenous peoples ’ organizations, monitor the high levels of global violence and threats directed at indigenous women human rights defenders. The Forum calls for an immediate halt to the criminalization, incarceration, intimidation, coercion and assassination of, and death threats to, all indigenous human and environmental rights defenders. 43. The Permanent Forum calls for the implementation on the Convention on th e Rights of the Child, which gives clear guidance to States on the need for them to minimize childhood exposure to toxic chemicals through water, food, air and other sources of exposure. It is critical that environmental regulators be educated specifically regarding article 24 of the Convention. Health 44. Existing conventions governing the use and disposal of toxic chemicals and wastes do not adequately protect the rights of the world ’s most vulnerable, including indigenous peoples, who disproportionately suffer from their indiscriminate and irresponsible use. 45. The Permanent Forum welcomes the preliminary report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, which was presented at the current session, in accordance with recommendation 46 of the Forum at its sixteenth session, and invites the Special Rapporteur to present his final report to the Forum at its eighteenth session. 46. The Forum recommends that the International Conference on Chemicals Management establish an advisory committee of indigenous peoples in its intersessional process for considering the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management and the sound management of chemicals and waste beyond 2020. 47. The Forum recommends the creation of a global, legally binding regime for toxic industrial chemicals and hazardous pesticides, the vast majority of which are currently unregulated under existing conventions, to protect the rights of everyone, including indigenous peoples, from the grave threats to human rights presented by the ongoing chemical intensification of the global economy. Such a regime should have strong accountability and compliance mechanisms and be in conformity with international human rights standards, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 48. The Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption, in 2017, of the first policy on ethnicity and health by the States members of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and invites the World Health Organization (WHO) to follow this initiative and expand on this work at the global level. The Forum also notes the initiative of PAHO/WHO to develop a strategy and plan of action on ethnicity and health for the Americas, the implementation of a health plan for indigenous youth in Latin America and the launch of the Virtual Health Library on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine for the Americas, and invites PAHO/WHO to report to t he Forum at its eighteenth session on progress achieved. 49. The cultural and clinical knowledge of traditional indigenous midwives and their contributions to the well-being and positive health outcomes of indigenous peoples are largely unacknowledged in national health systems. Indigenous midwives work tirelessly to improve maternal and infant health throughout a person ’s reproductive life cycle and, in particular, during pregnancy, birth and the post -partum period. 18-07701 11/26