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OAS Working Group on the Protocol of San Salvador Launches Practical Guide on Indigenous Peoples' Rights

The Working Group of the Protocol of San Salvador (WGPSS) of the Organization of American States (OAS) presents the "Practical Guide for the operationalization of the indicators of the Protocol of San Salvador from a cross-cutting approach to indigenous peoples". This Guide seeks to facilitate access to Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (ESCER) for the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The report highlights that the situation of structural and systematic violation of their human rights historically suffered by indigenous peoples has led to higher rates of poverty, precarious health conditions, limited access to health structures, educational institutions and decent jobs, among other aspects. This situation affects millions of people. According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), 54.8 million indigenous people live in Latin America and the Caribbean and 7.6 million in North America. According to figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 826 indigenous peoples have been registered in the countries of the region.

The Guide has been prepared by the WGPSS and the Department of Social Inclusion of the OAS Secretariat for Access to Rights and Equity to help make visible the real situation of indigenous peoples' access to ESCER rights. It is available only in Spanish and it is being prepared to be published in English. It also seeks to provide guidance to the States Parties to the Protocol of San Salvador and other countries in the region on how to improve the collection of data that adequately identify the difficulties that indigenous peoples and their members face, with the ultimate aim of facilitating the design of public policies to address them.

The preparation of this Guide is one of the actions adopted by the OAS to contribute to the construction of more inclusive and equitable societies, promoting access to rights for groups in vulnerable situations.

This Guide is the second in a series of thematic manuals called "Measuring all the gaps" that seeks to clarify the status of Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (ESCER) of various vulnerable groups, such as indigenous peoples. The first in this series is the "Guide for the operationalization of the indicators of the Protocol of San Salvador from a cross-cutting LGBTI perspective".

The "Protocol of San Salvador," which entered into force in 1999, is the Additional Protocol on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to the American Convention on Human Rights, in force since 1969. In 2007, the OAS General Assembly created the WGPSS to analyze the national reports provided for in the Protocol.

Reference: E-055/22