On the occasion of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the EU announced it is investing a further €7 million to promote and protect indigenous peoples’ rights worldwide. These funds are part of a wider €27 million Global Gateway investment package into fair, accountable and inclusive trade and business to boost sustainability in global supply chains.
Global value chains are a key feature of today’s global economy, linked to about half of world trade. The globalisation of the economy has brought with it clear and enormous economic and social benefits, but it has also contributed to severe environmental damage, serious human rights violations and wrongful labour practices such as forced labour, child labour and trafficking in human beings.
Indigenous peoples who have been exposed to adverse corporate behaviour often have limited means to hold the perpetrators accountable. Impunity has in fact reached alarming levels in many indigenous territories, with economic interests prevailing over social and environmental laws, policies and safeguards. One out of three human rights defenders killed in 2020 belonged to an indigenous community.
To enhance the duty of states to protect, and the responsibility of corporations to respect human rights, the EU will support national and global level advocacy by indigenous communities that are particularly at risk of corporate human rights violations and environmental harm.
The EU will invest in enabling indigenous communities to monitor and report human rights abuses and environmental damage, and to carry out fact-based advocacy with political and corporate actors at all levels. Indigenous communities will also receive EU support for their own initiatives to boost sustainable development.
For more information
Declaration on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples by High Representative Josep Borrel on behalf of the EU
