Read the Information of on the Human Rights Council 12th Session that occurred (28th September 2009.
Thank you Mr. President
Interfaith International welcome proposal No. 1 and 2 page 4 and 5 of UN document
A/HR/C/12/32 that the Human Rights Council authorizes the Expert Mechanism to
prepare study on Indigenous peoples” right to participate in decision making and
States should be encouraged to ensure that they have strong national human to
promote and protect rights of Indigenous people.
Interfaith International is gravely concerned about the continued denial of basic
human rights of indigenous people of Sindh including right of education in their own
language. Strategic designs continue to place severe hindrances in lingual, cultural,
social and educational development of Sindhi people.
The indigenous people of Sindh are being denied basic rights of Education. In Sindh
more than 5000 primary Schools have been closed down gradually in the last ten
years. In Dow Medical University Karachi children of indigenous people of Sindh are
denied admission by one of the coalition party of the government of Sindh. Sindh
contributes more than 70% of the wealth of Pakistan but the research by the Asian
Development Bank shows that more than 80% of indigenous people live below
poverty line in rural areas of Sindh.
International human rights law recognizes the right of education as basic human right
for everyone. But as a policy of one of the worst kinds of apartheid, the indigenous
people of Sindh have been denied even basic right to get education in the educational
institutions of their capital city, Karachi. Hundreds of the institutions providing
education in the mother tongue of the indigenous people, Sindhi, have been closed in
Karachi. Scores of the buildings of primary schools in villages of Sindh have been
either bulldozed or evacuated to settle outside immigrants.
The Interfaith International requests the UN and the International Community to press
upon the Pakistan government to abolish immediately all the discriminatory policies
against the indigenous people of Sindh in all spheres of their development including
educational, linguistic, economic, political, social and cultural. The Pakistan
government should enact meaningful policies to offset the damage done to the
educational development of the indigenous people of Sindh.