Indigenous people, the ilo

first issues of the ILO was the 1929 Convention against Forced Labour. In 1936, it adopted Convention No. 50 on the recruitment of indigenous workers. The 1949 Resolution of the UN General Meeting 275 requested the conducting of a study on the social problems of aboriginal peoples in Latin America.
According to the ILO, labour rights – in the broad sense – includes not only the rights of employed people with wages. It also includes the rights of those who, for some reasons beyond their good will and due to unjust phenomena – do not have access to employment.
These social groups include women, disabled people, youth and indigenous and tribal people.
The ILO eventually came up with Convention No. 107 concerning indigenous and tribal peoples, which was ratified by 27 countries, including six from Africa.
Convention No. 169 was later introduced in 1989 as a revision of Convention No. 107, and certain countries denounced it because of its goals and provisions. Its emphasis is on correcting historical injustices through principle participation and consultation. This is inorder to correct the assimilationist approach and allow the indigenous people to determine or participate in defining their destiny.
Convention No. 169 also aims at reducing socio-economic disparities in areas such as rights to land, health, education, and employment among many others.
This is through adoption of special measures (positive discrimination), but with no new special rights such as equal rights. The other emphasis is on recognition of cultural identities, lifestyles and traditional institutions to rebuild self-esteem and pride in their culture once considered as savage and due to disappear.
Only 22 countries have ratified Convention No. 169 with surprisingly only one African country. The other countries are 15 from Latin America, two from Asia and four from Europe. In 1958, the ILO adopted Convention No. 111 concerning discrimination in employment and occupation. This Convention was ratified by more than 160 countries and is aimed at restoring, recognising and protecting indigenous peoples’ traditional occupations. The objective is to correct discrimination against the traditional occupations considered as economically unsustainable and incompatible with the major development projects. Some of the occupations are not recognised and protected and sometimes not well known.
There may be a lack of access to market and financing, while the spoliation of land and non-recognition of indigenous customary land rights may affect the occupations. Other ILO Conventions in the interest of indigenous people are Convention No. 29 on forced labour, Convention No. 82 on the worst forms of child labour and Convention No. 138 on minimum age.
Governments across the world have obligations to use positive action. This is in implementing special measures to protect individuals, institutions, property, jobs, cultures and environment of indigenous people.
They should ensure institutions and other appropriate mechanisms must be created to administer the programmes and they must be given the means necessary to perform their duties. Governments have to take action on planning, co-ordination, implementation and evaluation of measures in co-operation with indigenous people.
The nature and scope of the measures should be determined flexibly, taking into account the specific conditions of each country. The Convention recognises indigenous peoples’ property and possession rights on natural resources present on their land. This includes the right to participate in the use, management and protection of these resources.
However, in cases where the State retains the ownership of mineral or underground resources, the people concerned should be consulted in order to determine if and how their interests are threatened.
Traditional indigenous people should be among the beneficiaries of these activities and receive compensation for any damage. When it comes to the elimination of economic and social disparities, on the issue of education national languages must be taught as well as general knowledge and skills. The history of the indigenous and traditional people should be taken into account while teaching.
This includes their knowledge, techniques, systems of values and other social, economic and cultural wishes. Specific needs should be addressed, while all segments of the population should be educated in order to eliminate prejudice.
Governments should facilitate contacts and co-operation between indigenous and tribal people across borders in the economic, social, cultural, spiritual and environmental domains. Convention No. 169 is therefore a tool for correcting historical injustices, promoting cultural diversity, good governance, dialogue and national cohesion. It is a tool for sustainable development, preventing conflicts and international co-operation.
African regional efforts and obligations have been observed over the years, with Zimbabwe’s year 2000 agrarian reform programme being a milestone in Southern Africa as it redressed colonial imbalances in land distribution.
The programme has seen nearly 300 000 families benefiting from fertile land formerly held by just 4 000 white farmers. When Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, about 6 000 white commercial farmers – who made up less than 1 percent of the population – owned 70 percent of the best farming land.
In 2007, the Government of Zimbabwe also embarked on an indigenisation and economic empowerment drive. This was through gazzetting of the Indigenisation Act aimed at redressing imbalances of the past by seeking to equitably transfer ownership, management and control of the country’s financial and economic resources to the majority of the citizens.
Also of note is that in March 1999, the Government of South Africa recognised the San ancestral land rights and awarded them over 40 000 hectares of land outside the Kgalagadi Park. It also gave 25 000 hectares on the Southern part of the Park, as well as commercial and symbolic rights in the rest of the national park.
In 2003, the indigenous Nama people of Richterveld in South Africa took a diamond company – Alexkor – to court concerning sharing of resources.
The SA Constitutional Court ruled: “It follows, therefore, that prior to annexation the Community had a right to ownership in the subject land under indigenous law.
“This extended to ownership of minerals and precious stones . . . Nor were the land rights extinguished by any subsequent express or implied act by the British state. Even if it is accepted that all annexed land became the property of the British state by reason of annexation . . . there are clear indications in both statutes that there was never any intention to extinguish the Community’s rights, but merely regulate them.”
It is of major concern that members of the journalism fraternity have not done enough in contributing to the establishment of national standards on the rights of indigenous people. They can do more in monitoring the implementation of domestic and international standards on indigenous people. They can also contribute to changing attitude and prejudices of national populations towards indigenous and tribal people.