Scroll down for a list of all articles about Canadian Friends Service Committee’s work in support of Indigenous peoples’ human rights.

Our work uses the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a framework and is always done in partnership with Indigenous peoples and human rights organizations. Our newsletter Quaker Concern comes out three times a year sharing stories from our Indigenous rights work and how we’re making a difference.

We cannot have peace without justice. Indigenous peoples do not have justice, and so we are led to walk alongside and support our Indigenous partners in their struggles for it.

Indigenous peoples globally continue to face discrimination, dispossession of their lands and resources, forced assimilation, and other grave human rights abuses. The UN Declaration is the most comprehensive international human rights instrument to specifically address their economic, social, cultural, political, civil, spiritual and environmental rights.

In its own words, the UN Declaration sets out minimum standards necessary for the “dignity, survival and well-being” of Indigenous peoples.

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted the Declaration on September 13, 2007. This historic adoption followed more than 20 years of deliberation and debate!

The Declaration affirms inherent or pre-existing collective human rights, as well as the human rights of Indigenous individuals. It provides a framework for justice and reconciliation, applying existing human rights standards to the specific historical, cultural, and social circumstances of Indigenous peoples.

IWe work with many organizations to hold Canada accountable to meet its responsibilities under domestic law and international law including the UN Declaration. Together with our partners we regularly produce joint statements, open letters, and educational materials.

Quakers need to develop and nurture relationships of trust and mutual respect between ourselves, others in Canada, and the Indigenous peoples of this territory.