During the month of September 2017, UMIYAC attended the 36th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.
This activity was part of the process of political advocacy that UMIYAC has been carrying out since August 2016. The delegation took place thanks to the generous support of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education Research and Service (ICEERS), with the logistical help of the Suiss-Colombian NGO, Maloca Internationale.
Within the framework of the 36th session of the Human Rights Council, ICEERS, Maloca and UMIYAC jointly held a Side-Event titled: Human Rights and Cultural Rights in Colombia: Ancestral Medicine and Traditional Psychoactive Plants – Cultural Rights Exercises, Peace Bulding and Drug Policy Reform.
The UMIYAC delegation also met with the Special Rapporteur, Mis Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and her entourage. During this important meeting, our spokespersons took the opportunity to talk about: health and ancestral medicine; indigenous self-government; and the violence unleashed in Colombia against human rights and nature rights defenders. Further, the delegation discussed the issue of prior consultation. The need to strengthen participation mechanism so that prior consultations don’t become tools to divide communities and weaken local governments.
