Today is Human Rights Day! Let us remember that Indigenous Rights are also Human Rights!

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global enunciation of human rights and one of the first major achievements of the new United Nations.

As we celebrate the 73rd International Human Rights Day, we recognize that Indigenous Peoples' resiliency and dignity continue to persevere, despite ongoing assimilation, genocide, violent attempts to dismantle Indigenous lifeways, and the theft and destruction of Indigenous lands.

At Cultural Survival, we make it a priority to track and denounce violence towards Indigenous human rights and environmental defenders. So far this year, we have documented 42 murders of Indigenous human rights and environmental defenders in Latin American countries where we work. We continue to investigate and denounce these cases. 

In 2021, we submitted 8 reports to UN human rights monitoring mechanisms holding governments accountable for Indigenous Peoples' rights violations in Suriname, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, Uganda, Russia, Brazil, and globally on climate change. We continue to support human rights education through our grant programs, ensuring that Indigenous communities are aware of international human rights frameworks.



From March to June 2021, Cultural Survival provided capacity-building sessions on communication tools and international human rights to 24 Indigenous women from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, in a virtual format. The participants were activists and leaders in their home communities and had the opportunity to learn from human rights and communications experts, as well as to exchange their experiences and knowledge. Many of the participants had already demonstrated interest in promoting human rights in their communities, but obstacles in accessing training and receiving recognition and visibility had restrained their efforts and dismissed their results. Check out their final projects here. (en español)

Despite our efforts, the number of attacks against Indigenous human rights and land defenders is steadily rising, especially in a global pandemic. While Indigenous human rights and land defenders get little attention, Cultural Survival is one of just a few organizations that document and publicize this violence, where we harness global attention in the pursuit of justice. For close to 50 years, we have committed to supporting Indigenous communities to assert and exercise their rights. Every day at Cultural Survival, we work to make these rights a reality, through Indigenous-led grant-making, advocacy, communications, and capacity building by supporting grassroots Indigenous solutions, uplifting Indigenous women's and youth leadership, and amplifying Indigenous voices about international human rights. 

In observance of Human Rights Day and in honor of the Indigenous communities we work with, we invite you to join us as we collectively advance Indigenous rights worldwide. If you haven’t yet, we call on you, our community, to help us reach our full CS50 goal!  Join us in the fight to advance and defend human rights and support Indigenous human rights and land defenders by making a generous gift to Cultural Survival today! 

Listen and share our Indigenous Rights Radio Series on Navigating the United Nations for Indigenous Peoples. 

This series, broken down into ten 2-minute programs, takes listeners step by step through the uses of the various tools that the UN provides to Indigenous Peoples to defend and advocate for their rights, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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