E/CN.4/Sub.2/434 page 6
The Aborigines' efforts to organize themselves had been repressed by the local governments, and the rights of voting and assembly denied to them. He reminded the Working Group that Australia had ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery and asked the Group to recommend to the Sub-Commission that it request the Government of Australia to indicate the measures taken to satisfy its obligations under these Conventions.
18.
Other participants in the debate pointed out that the information available to them confirmed the statement of the representative of the Minority Rights Group in its general lines, although not necessarily in the specific cases mentioned.
19. The ILO representative stated that Australia had not ratified the Tribal and Indigenous Populations Convention (No. 107). However, the ILO would welcome receiving information on practices concerning the conditions of work of Aborigines which would be covered by other Conventions ratified by Australia.
20.
It was also stated that many indigenous peoples in other areas of the world faced similar problems and that the Sub-Commission, through its special rapporteur, Mr. Martinez Cobo, was involved in preparing a study on discrimination against indigenous populations. The information contained in the statement by the Minority Rights Group representative could be taken into account in that study. The study might eventually lead to the elaboration of new standards concerning indigenous populations, or other measures. In the view of one member, the Sub-Commission might ..consider setting up a new Working Group on the Problems of Indigenous Peoples which
could study appropriate measures and make recommendations.
21.
A representative of the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights informed the Working Group of some recent developments concerning issues which the Society had brought before the Group in the past. He stated that, since 1974, the Society had received no new evidence of slavery-like practices against the Aché Indians of Paraguay, a result which, in his view, was at least in part related to the exposure of the practices and to international pressure. Concerning the Andoke Indians of Colombia, he stated that they had been brought out of debt bondage by the Society in co-operation with another organization and had been trained and equipped to regain their economic independence. With respect to traffic in persons in Hong Kong, he stated that according to available information, there had not been much change in the situation as reported earlier. Concerning forced labour practices on the island of Fernando Po, in Equatorial Guinea, he indicated that no information had reached the Society that the practice was being or would be discontinued, so that it was to be assumed that the situation had remained the same. With respect to the situation of peasants in a number of Latin American countries, he stated that information available to the Society confirmed its previous reports, despite denials by some of the Governments involved. In Bolivia, on the other hand, it appeared that international pressure, especially in the form of conditions safeguarding human rights attached to loans by foreign institutions, had brought about a great improvement in the conditions of coal miners reported earlier by the Society, although much work still remained to be done.
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22.
The Group also had before it a report by the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights entitled Migrant Workers in the Dominican Republic. report dealt with the period up to the end of the régime of President Balaguer. report stated that in 1978, a responsible observer had visited the Dominican Republic and had reported that the condition of Haitian migrant workers. could be compared only with slavery. It indicated that a traffic in persons was taking place from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, whereby 12,000 cane-cutters were sold each year
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