ADVOCACY STATEMENT

Every year on 9 August, the world marks the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, commemorating the first session of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982. This year,  CHARM  joins Indigenous peoples, movements and allies across the globe to reaffirm that Indigenous rights are human rights – and to call on states, businesses and multilateral institutions to close the persistent gap between international commitments and lived reality on the ground.

From the fruit gatherers and hunters of Africa to the pastoralists of East, Central, and West Africa Africa, from the Amazon to the Arctic, Indigenous peoples continue to be dispossessed of ancestral lands, criminalised for defending their territories, and killed for protecting the environment. CHARM calls for urgent, concrete action across three interlinked priorities: land rights, the protection of human rights defenders, and the safety of environmental activists.