On September 28^th and 29^th, 2015 FundaMaya and Rights and Resources Initiative hosted the first International Workshop in Guatemala City addressing the opportunities available to Indigenous communities in their constitutional courts and the International Court of Human Rights. The workshop was a debate and reflection from various experiences in Latin America that analyzed and provided lessons learned on the social, political, and strategic use of constitutional courts and the International Court of Human Rights.

On September 24, 2015, the Continental Confederacy delegation in Lenape Territory (Philadelphia) took place focusing on the process of Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery coinciding with the US visit of Pope Francis. It featured leaders from Indigenous Nations from across Turtle Island - Abya Yala.

By John McPhaul

A case of Indigenous land rights is testing the Central American country of Costa Rica's otherwise stellar reputation for protecting human rights.

In July of 2012, Sergio Rojas, a leader Costa Rica's Bribri Indigenous community, led Bribri and Teribe Indigenous in an effort to reclaim land within the Salitre Indigenous reserve in the Talamanca Mountains in southwestern Costa Rica.

The UK government has published a statement in September highlighting continued opposition and turmoil in Bangladesh over British company GCM Resources’ plans to build a massive open pit coal mine in Phulbari, located in the north west of Bangladesh.  The mine would displace up to 50,000 Indigenous Peoples from 23 farming communities, and up to 220,000 people from the wider areas.

Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP)
Public Statement

On September 12, 2015, hundreds of people from Quechua, Achuar and Kichwa communities of the Pastaza, Corrientes, and Tigre rivers united to form a peaceful protest at the site of the Andoas airport in the Upper Pastaza region of Loreto where Lot 192 has its headquarters. Using their bodies to block the landing strip, mothers, children, elderly and others occupied the space for a total of 12 days.

On September 1st, 2015, the government of Peru announced that the process of prior consultation over oil concessions in the Peruvian Amazon had ended, despite agreements failing to be reached.  A series of formal dialogues regarding Lot 192 between the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Indigenous Peoples organizations ended unsuccessfully at the end of August, 2015. 

By Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

By Alexis White-Mobley

Native American and Alaska Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than other women in the US; 86% of reported cases are perpetrated by non-Natives.

A 2014 study by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police concluded that Indigenous women in Canada are four times more likely to be murdered than non-indigenous women.

On Thursday September 10, 2015 the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and CONNECTAS in collaboration with Asociacion Sobrevivencia Cultural began a three-day Investigative Journalism training workshop in Guatemala City. The project is part of an ICFJ initiative to foster investigative journalism in Latin America. Guatemala is one of three countries in Central America to benefit from the training workshops Honduras and El Salvador have already hosted similar events.

The year 2015 was an eventful year for politics in Guatemala. In a report released on April 25, 2015 by the International Center Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), several high-ranking government officials were involved in customs fraud. The report pointed directly to the now ex-president and ex-vicepresident of the country as leading a secret group that stole millions from the country by negotiating customs taxes for various customers.