A/HRC/18/26 informed consent, in conformity with ILO Convention No. 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and relevant decisions of the Constitutional Court; the design of specific strategies to generate employment opportunities; the registration of newborn indigenous children; and protecting the rights of indigenous women displaced by internal armed conflict. 68. At its forty-fifth session, the Committe addressed indigenous concerns to one State party. It recommended that the State party should ensure that the indigenous community could return to and remain undisturbed on the lands from which they were evicted. It recommended the establishment of an authority for the representation of the community for consultation and consent, as well as State party consideration to ratify ILO Convention No. 169. (d) Committee against Torture 69. In consideration of a State party report, the Committee against Torture noted that arrest warrants were often insufficiently substantiated by evidence and that arrests were used as a means of stigmatizing certain groups, inter alia, indigenous people (Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, art. 2). The Committee recommended that the State party should take steps to eradicate preventive administrative detention and mass arrests, and act on the recommendations made by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. It also expressed concern about threats against victims of forced displacement who had asked for the return of their land. It noted that those mainly affected were, inter alia, indigenous peoples. The Committee was concerned under article 14 of the Convention that land belonging to displaced persons had been seized by illegal armed groups and, in some cases, sold to third parties for mono-cultivation and the exploitation of natural resources. It therefore urged the State party to take effective measures to ensure the return of land to victims of displacement and respect the land ownership of, inter alia, indigenous peoples. (e) Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women 70. The Committee jalso took note of information from the State party on the preparation of a draft bill on cooperation and coordination between the indigenous and ordinary justice systems, setting out, in articles 4 and 19, the principle of reviews for constitutionality. It expressed concern that neither the periodic report nor the answers given by the delegation of the State party provided sufficient information on how conflicts of jurisdiction between the two systems would be resolved (articles 2 and 16). It therefore recommended that the State party should take the steps necessary to ensure that conflicts of jurisdiction between ordinary and indigenous justice systems are resolved through a procedure laid down by law. 71. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women expressed concern about the lack of effective access to the justice system for indigenous women. In relevant concluding observations, the Committee requested State parties to take all appropriate measures to remove impediments that women may face in gaining access to justice and to put in place measures to ensure women’s access to justice. It specifically recommended that States parties should enhance women’s awareness of their rights through legal literacy programmes and legal assistance, and ensure that judges, lawyers, prosecutors and public defenders are familiar with the rights of women, including indigenous women, as well as with the obligations of States parties under the Convention. 72. During the period under review, the Committee continued to pay particular attention to the lack of access to health care for indigenous women, and recommended that State parties should close the existing gaps in the infant and maternal mortality rates between indigenous and non-indigenous populations. 15

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