Indigenous land defenders are being killed and criminalized at alarming rates, AI systems scrape traditional knowledge without consent, while Indigenous women face escalating rates of violence — crises that Indigenous leaders confronted this week at the United Nations, where they warned that the fight for health and sovereignty now extends from traditional territories into digital spaces.
Those warnings came during the 25th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, where the overarching theme “Ensuring Indigenous Peoples’ Health in the context of conflict” resonated with participants from around the world. In 2023 alone, 31 percent of human rights defenders killed worldwide were Indigenous or working on Indigenous rights, despite making up only five percent of the global population.
“There is a crisis Indigenous people are currently experiencing, and it’s because many Indigenous peoples are killed, many are under arrest, many live in hiding. This is because Indigenous peoples land and territory are often not protected enough,” ... Read more
