A/HRC/54/52 risk of violence threatening the rights to life and to personal integrity, and their physical and cultural survival.37 24. These rights may be directly threatened owing to militarization, conflict, and criminalization of human rights defenders. 38 Intimidation and fear of reprisal prevents Indigenous Peoples from taking legal action against the military for ongoing and historical abuses. Killings of Indigenous activists and human rights defenders continue in many places. In some jurisdictions, Indigenous Peoples regard the military as violently suppressing their movements for self-determination and autonomy.39 25. United Nations experts have expressed concern over a reported pattern of extrajudicial killings of Indigenous Peoples by the military that is occurring with impunity in coal-mining areas of India, namely Nagaland.40 There are reports that massacres have been used as a form of collective punishment in Manipur for alleged attacks by insurgents. 41 In Myanmar, counter-insurgency operations have allegedly resulted in the military burning Indigenous Peoples’ villages and fields, destroying places of worship, mass displacements, the use of Indigenous Peoples as human shields, violence, including sexual violence, and extrajudicial killings. 42 Similarly, there have been reports of threats and intimidation by the Nepalese police against Indigenous Peoples opposing the Government’s construction of transmission lines and other infrastructure projects.43 26. In the Philippines, there are allegations of extrajudicial killings, torture, abduction and enforced disappearances of known Indigenous activists and human rights defenders, and of illegal surveillance, searches, arrests and detentions of activists being carried out by the military forces.44 In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, there are allegations of arbitrary arrests by the military, raids, torture, and harassment at checkpoints.45 In the Mayangna Sauni territory of Nicaragua, there are reports of killings and acts of torture against Indigenous Peoples committed by non-regular armed groups such as settlers or paramilitaries, with the acquiescence of military and police forces.46 In Colombia, there is an increase of violence against Indigenous Peoples due to the expansion of different non-State armed groups and criminal organizations.47 27. Human rights violations associated with the use of private security and paramilitary groups to protect extractive projects have been reported in Papua New Guinea, where security guards and police at Barrick Gold’s Porgera Joint Venture mine were involved in sexually assaulting and raping women and committing violence against men.48,49 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 GE.23-14759 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “Indigenous women and their human rights in the Americas”, 17 April 2017. See A/HRC/EMRIP/2019/2/Rev.1. See A/HRC/24/41/Add.3. See communication IND 3/2022. See also the submissions from the Indigenous Rights Advocacy Centre, the Global Naga Forum and the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Submission from United NGOs Mission Manipur, North-East Development Forum, Imphal, Manipur. Submission from the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. See communications NPL 2/2022, OTH 36/2022 and OTH 35/2022. Jill Cariño, Vice-Chairperson for External Affairs of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, presentation at the Expert seminar, Geneva, December 2022. See also the submissions from the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center and the Panaghiusa Philippine Network. Joint contribution by the International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, the Chittagong Hill Tracts Citizens Committee, the Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples’ Network on Climate Change and Biodiversity, the CHT Headmen-Karbari Network, the Women Resource Network, the CHT Women Headmen-Karbari Network and the Movement for Protection of Forest and Land Rights in CHT. Maria Luisa Acosta, presentation at the Expert Seminar, Geneva, December 2022. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Colombia, Territorial Violence in Colombia: Recommendations for the New Government (2022), available at https://www.hchr.org.co/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Territorial-Violence-in-Colombia.pdf. Submission from Asia Justice and Rights. Division for Inclusive Social Development of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Indigenous Peoples and Development Branch of the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples: Rights to Lands, Territories and Resources, vol. 5 (2021). 7