It is urgent to promote concrete actions to allow native communities to enjoy all their economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, Cuban diplomat Alejandro González said.

The adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was a historic victory in the fight for their rights, Alejandro González from the Cuban Mission stressed.

However, he stated, ‘much remains to be done and native peoples continue facing severe and daily violations of their rights.’

Discrimination, marginalization and exclusion, dispossession of lands and territories, forced expulsion or relocation, denial of their rights to ancestral territories and resources, among others, are an unfortunate reality for indigenous communities in many parts of the world, Gonzalez warned.

All this occurs even amid the Covid-19 pandemic and it is still alarming that many of these situations are present in highly-developed countries, which paradoxically stand as champions of human rights, González stressed.

mh/pll/oda / ifb