Human Rights and Disability Advocacy

10. Indigenous People with Disabilities: The Missing Link

CHAPTER 10 Indigenous People with Disabilities: The Missing Link Huhana Hickey Since the introduction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the UN has focused on treaties for groups requiring specific protection . The original Declaration did not address inequality for certain minority groups, including indigenous people and persons with disabilities. This lack of acknowledgment adds to the exclusion and marginalization these groups experience. The negotiations of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities partly overlapped with those concerning the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Persons. Although concluded simultaneously, UNDRIP had in fact been in negotiations for approximately sixteen years, while the CRPD had been in negotiations for a relatively short five years. While the CRPD influenced the UNDRIP, which explicitly recognizes that particular attention shall be paid, inter alia, to the rights and special needs of indigenous persons with disabilities, the CRPD barely recognized the UNDRIP . This chapter examines these issues from the perspective of being indigenous persons with disabilities, keen to ensure that the rights of indigenous persons with disabilities be recognized in the Convention. Through the support of the International Disability Caucus, I became a remote IDC member : representing indigenous peoples with disabilities without physically attending the Ad Hoc Committee sessions. It is my contention that indigenous persons with disabilities were excluded from the Convention’s early development because of a dearth of financial resources and their governments’ lack of support. An examination 158 Huhana Hickey of how the Convention was advanced from the perspective of noninclusion of indigenous persons with disabilities additionally highlights the similarities and differences between non-Westernized and Western/industrial state developments in law and policy. While discussions of persons with disabilities commonly depend on the notion of universalism and individual rights, regardless of any cultural-specific identity, the concerns of indigenous persons with disabilities are related to discussions of group rights and cultural relativism that are intertwined with collective identities. The Marginalized of the Marginalized In September 2010, James Anaya, special rapporteur on indigenous peoples, presented his annual report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. His statement to the council on UNDRIP is a powerful summary of the situation of indigenous peoples around the globe: The poorest among the poor, indigenous peoples continue to be at the margins of power and, in many cases, disregard of their basic human rights escalates into violence against them. However, they have preserved, generation after generation, an extraordinary wealth of knowledge, culture, and spirituality in the common benefit of humankind , contributing significantly to the world’s diversity and environmental sustainability. Still, it is painfully apparent that historical patterns of oppression continue to manifest themselves in ongoing barriers to the full enjoyment of human rights by indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples continue to see their traditional lands invaded by powerful actors seeking wealth at their expense, thereby depriving them of life-sustaining resources. Statistics about indigenous persons with disabilities are hard to come by, although, as this quotation demonstrates, the UN recognizes indigenous peoples’ status of marginalization. Because of the historically fraught relationship , states are more reluctant to recognize this situation, and therefore it suits them to avoid the issue all together. Indigenous persons with disabilities who have become a minority in their own country through colonization have better documented statistics showing they face greater marginalization as indigenous persons with disabilities than other persons Indigenous People with Disabilities 159 with disabilities and other indigenous peoples who do not experience disability. In his role as special rapporteur, Anaya identifies in his travels the disparities and multiple marginalization experienced by indigenous people, particularly indigenous persons with disabilities. But this documentation is incomplete. In New Zealand, for instance, indigenous persons with disabilities were not given the opportunity to meet with the special rapporteur despite their request to do so. As indigenous persons with disabilities are often made invisible both by the states and by their own communities, who struggle to understand disability and what it means within their own cultural concept, drawing attention to their living conditions, the lack of opportunities , and the dire state of their rights can only be advanced if such an effort is comprehensively carried out by an international authority such as the special rapporteur whose mandate allows a specific focus. Two definitional issues in the case of indigenous persons with disabilities have given rise to special difficulties. The first is the complexity of defining indigenous people within the UN system and the related controversy on the meaning of the right...