The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimation (CERD) has released its concluding observations from its review of Canada’s 19th and 20th periodic reports.
Dr. Bennett wrote to CERD last month, urging the committee to consider ongoing issues on inequality for Abroiginal peoples in Canada, including lack of consultation, the underfunding of essential services, and the disproportionate rate of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls.
Recommendations from the Committee include:
- “strengthen its efforts to eliminate violence against Aboriginal women” including “a national plan of action on Aboriginal gender-based violence”
- “speeding up the provision of safe drinking water to Aboriginal communities on reserve”
- “consider elaborating and adopting a national plan of action in order to implement the United Nations Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples”
- provide “family and child care services on reserves with sufficient funding”
- “implement in good faith the right to consultation and to free, prior and informed consent of Aboriginal peoples whenever their rights may be affected by projects carried out on their lands”
- “reinforce measures to prevent excessive use of incarceration of indigenous peoples”
- “give serious consideration to the establishment of a Treaty Commission with a mandate to resolve treaty rights issues”
For more information, click here to read the news release issued by a coalition of indigenous peoples’ organizations and human rights groups, including Amnesty International Canada, and the Assembly of First Nations.
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