Draft first regional report on the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development

Chapter III
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
Guatemala has established a comprehensive community-based health-care model (MISPA) and a national
policy for midwives of the country’s four indigenous peoples, which incorporate fundamental elements
of the cosmogonic principles of indigenous peoples, accepting, inter alia, their own forms of health care,
the recognition of midwives by the Ministry of Health so that they can accompany women in institutional
delivery and the use of ancestral procedures and medicines for pre- and post-natal care. Mexico launched a
2013-2018 programme of action to promote the health of indigenous peoples with a focus on human rights,
gender equality, social determinants and cultural and linguistic relevance. The country also adopted a strategy
for sexual and reproductive health care in indigenous communities, which aims to reduce unplanned and
unwanted pregnancies (particularly among the adolescent population), and to prevent sexually transmitted
infections, including HIV/AIDS. This strategy has been rolled out in 32 health districts, 93 municipalities and
201 towns of 11 federal entities. There are 4,188 youth volunteers in these regions who carry out promotion
and information campaigns to empower the population in free, voluntary and informed decision-making with
respect to their sexual and reproductive life (Government of Mexico, 2018).
In 2016, Peru established a sectoral intercultural health policy to guarantee the right to health of indigenous,
Andean, Amazon and Afro-Peruvian peoples. The Ministry of Health also implements a health-care strategy for
indigenous peoples, and there are other programmes that explicitly include or focus on indigenous peoples,
such as: a national sexual and reproductive health-care strategy, which has established specific rules for
the cultural adaptation of services, and a project to expand the national HIV response in key and vulnerable
populations in urban and Amazon areas in Peru, which prioritizes territories inhabited by indigenous communities
and includes intercultural dialogue in its initiatives.
Empowerment is essential to counter violence against indigenous women, upholding practices and
beliefs that they regard as positive and challenging those that they deem harmful. Several initiatives that
follow this logic are under way in the region, such as the Casas de la Mujer Indígena in Mexico: to date,
there are 31 women’s shelters in 16 federal entities that provide health care and address violence against
women (Government of Mexico, 2018 and ECLAC 2013a and 2014). The strengthening of indigenous women’s
leadership has boosted the inclusion of violence in their organizational agendas and their policy advocacy
in this area, as seen in Ecuador, where the agenda of the indigenous women’s organization is one of the
priorities of justice system reform; in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, where indigenous women have
negotiated agreements guaranteeing participation in political affairs and in justice oversight committees at
the municipal level; and on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, where indigenous women and girls have
been empowered to document and <strong>report</strong> violations of their rights, including trafficking (ECLAC, 2013a
and 2014). Guatemala has established an office for the defence of indigenous women, with the specific aim
of defending and promoting the full exercise of indigenous women’s rights to eradicate all forms of violence
and discrimination against these women. Moreover, that country’s national <strong>report</strong> mentions crime prevention
programmes run by a community-based violence prevention unit, which focuses on gender equality and
multiculturalism, models of care for women who are survivors of violence and the strengthening of public
prosecutors’ offices specializing in the investigation of crimes against women, particularly indigenous women
(Government of Guatemala, 2017).
All these efforts are expected to have a significant impact on the well-being of indigenous peoples,
women, boys and girls, which should be reflected in results indicators. Hence, statistical systems, particularly
registration systems, must be strengthened to allow disaggregation of data for indigenous peoples along with
sex and age, as minimum disaggregation variables.
5. Progress in indigenous peoples’ right to information
The right to information is so fundamental to the exercise of other rights that it has become, along with access
to participation, justice and equality, a cross-cutting indicator of progress towards State enforcement of social,
economic and cultural rights. Hence, priority measure 90 of the Montevideo Consensus refers to the right to
information of indigenous peoples. Both ILO Convention No. 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples contain specific articles on this subject. There are also other international and
<strong>regional</strong> agreements that reinforce the need for timely and good-quality information for indigenous peoples,
with a gender, generational and territorial perspective.
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