The general sentiment from the gathered delegates was that indigenous people should enjoy the same freedoms as everyone else in society - in particular, the children. Bacre Waly Ndiaye, Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stressed that though there had been some progress in the first half of the decade, in the second half, we want to bring indigenous peoples rights into focus. Ndiaye also applauded the creation of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, calling it a significant step forward. Alberto Saldamando of the International Indian Treaty Council, spoke about specific occurrences of discrimination against indigenous people. He also talked about the unreliability of governmental statistics regarding indigenous persons.
Many governments don t even admit they have indigenous peoples within their borders.
Both Ndiaye and Saldamando spoke about importance of children in the indigenous peoples issues. Ndiaye said, The priority of our office is to protect the rights of children everywhere. He spoke of places where the indigenous children were facing severe discrimination, sexual and non sexual exploitation, as well as forced conscription. Besides access to schools being more difficult, he said that even when they are admitted to schools, they face much more difficult learning conditions. He said that not only are these children the victims of stereotypes, but they face a significant barrier because of the language of instruction.