Vietnam shares experience in ensuring indigenous peoples’ rights

A session of the United Nations (Illustrative photo: Xinhua/ VNA)

New York (VNA) – The Vietnamese Permanent Mission to the United Nations (UN) is attending the 17th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), which takes place from April 16 to 27 at the UN Headquarters in New York.

In a speech, a representative of the mission said the country is home to 54 ethnic groups living in solidarity and mutual assistance.

Vietnam also shared its ethnic policies at the session, including the policy on socio-economic development for ethic minority groups in mountainous and remote areas, infrastructure investment for impoverished families, as well as afforestation and environmental protection, among others. 

The Vietnamese delegation also underlined the preservation of ethnic groups’ languages as a priority in education policy, while sharing experience in piloting the cooperation between Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training and UNESCO, bilingual programmes in three provinces with the highest density of ethnic people, the Vietnam News Agency’s release of bilingual publications and increase of ethnic language-speaking programmes of television and broadcasting stations at national and local levels.

The 17th Session of the UNPFII saw the participation of UN members, relevant agencies and more than 1,000 indigenous rights organisations. It discussed the challenges, experience and good practices in ensuring indigenous peoples’ collective rights to lands, territories and natural resources. 

Also on the agenda is the implementation of six mandated areas of the Permanent Forum with reference to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including social development, cultural, environment, education, health and human rights, especially language preservation towards the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages.-VNA