• Home
  • News
  • COVID-19 And Humanity: Human Rights in Peril

COVID-19 And Humanity: Human Rights in Peril

The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a calamitous global event, but it is revealing the worst fears, especially, human rights, conflict, racism, and starvation.

While thousands of migrant workers belonging to Indigenous communities have lost jobs and are stranded in several places across Asia − especially in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Thailand − and are struggling to survive, governments are using the situation as a cover for conducting  military campaigns, land grabbing, rolling back protective rights, weakening environmental laws and safeguards, etc. Further, licenses are being granted to large-scale development projects in forest lands and mining operations are continuing in some countries. Along with this, the  ever impact of the lockdown has been felt in general, but indicatively, the degree of severity is likely to be felt by women and persons with disabilities (even in the future) looking at the trend. “The democratic fabric of many countries is eroding during this pandemic. When people are in lockdown and prevented from going out and protest or go to the court, governments are rolling back constitutional rights of Indigenous Peoples, and evicting people from forest lands and military campaigns are being carried out. Are all these in any way relevant to the fight against the  Pandemic? Human rights and democratic norms are being put to peril," says Secretary General of Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) Mr. Gam A. Shimray.

AIPP has been observing the situation in Asia and the trend indicates that stringent measures put in place by governments in the last few months has not been effectively used to put their house in order to deal with the impact of the cycle of the pandemic curve that is likely to continue for some more time. Severe food and clean water shortages continue, and access to healthcare and essential services have hardly improved. Even appropriate awareness information in local languages for communities is still a major challenge. In this update, we provide some of the trends on the issue of human rights in Asia and it based on information compiled by AIPP i.e. both secondary sources and communication from the ground. 

Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, May 2020

 

  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 01
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 02
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 03
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 04
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 05
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 06
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 07
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 08
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 09
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 10
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 11
  • AIPPs Flash Update 3 Page 12

 

Download the full PDF

Tags: Covid-19

STAY CONNECTED

About IWGIA

IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs - is a global human rights organisation dedicated to promoting and defending Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Read more.

For media inquiries click here

Indigenous World

IWGIA's global report, the Indigenous World, provides an update of the current situation for Indigenous Peoples worldwide. Read The Indigenous World.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Contact IWGIA

Prinsessegade 29 B, 3rd floor
DK 1422 Copenhagen
Denmark
Phone: (+45) 53 73 28 30
E-mail: iwgia@iwgia.org
CVR: 81294410

Report possible misconduct, fraud, or corruption

 instagram social icon facebook_social_icon.png   youtuble_logo_icon.png  linkedin_social_icon.png  

NOTE! This site uses cookies and similar technologies.

If you do not change browser settings, you agree to it. Learn more

I understand

Joomla! Debug Console

Session

Profile Information

Memory Usage

Database Queries