強く優しく、チェンライ

チェンライ（2002年12月3日）

デンさんのアイディアによる鳥笛、竹の筒の入れ物に入っている

「この人達は、最も困難なグループなのです。国のあらゆるサービスは受けられず、土地を所有することさえ許されていません。そもそも国籍がないのです。」
コモル・ケムトン基金のミラーアーツグループのリーダー、デンさんは、美しい眉を雲らせた。チェンライから山道を車で１時間、タイ、ビルマ、ラオスの国境に近いバンジャラのコミュニティーの豚小屋の前だった。一坪ほどの木の柵で囲っただけのスペースで、それでも大小３匹の豚はのんびりとした目を私たちに向けてくれた。豚小屋の臭気を別にすれば、あたりは緑濃く、大気は透明で、気持ち良い田園なのである。
しかしながら、生活に困窮する山岳民族にとって、女、子供の売買は、手っ取り早い現金収入の道だった。売買された女、子供達は、ゴーゴー・バー等に隣接する食料品店、カラオケ店等で、事実上性的なサービスに就かされるのである。最初、運良く、メードとしてスタートした女も、次はウェイトレス、そして性産業へと、若干の収入増を望めば、落ち行く先は決まっている。一昔前間では、麻薬中毒の家庭も多かったのである。

グループは行政機関、福祉施設、コミュニティー、諸団体と連携しながら、バンジャラ，バンヤフー、バンアプラ及びバンアルジャ、マエヤオの５カ所で、ＩＬＯのトラフィッキングプロジェクトに従事している。期間は２００１年の８月１６日から２００２年の１２月３１日までの１６．５ヶ月で、ＩＬＯのＩＰＥＣから３２，８２６ドルの資金提供を受けている。

活動はまず、意識改革（awareness raising）という，最も困難で，忍耐と情熱を必要とするところから始める。コミュニティーの人たちに，女性、児童売買の何が，どうして問題なのか、それに代わるどんな選択肢があるのか、といったことについての理解をしてもらうのである。長い間虐げられ、誰からも援助の手が差し伸べられることもなく、極端な貧窮の中で，ようやく生き伸びてきた人たちなのである。特に、女、子供を売る側の男達は頑固である。それで、通常，プロジェクトティームは，女達から始める。それすらも、行政の権威を借り、族長に話しをつけて，許可を貰ってから行うのである。売られていった女、子供の実際に働く状況がビデオで紹介される。性の奴隷になり、廃人となって行く末路である。
それから能力開発（capacity building）の段階に移る。現金収入を得るための色々な選択肢が，他の地域での成功例とともに紹介される。その段階で，この地域でものになりそうな分野を、具体的に取り上げて，あらゆる角度から問題点を検討する。選択肢を特定すれば、次の段階、直接の支援（direct assistance），つまり、必要な資材の購入，技術訓練へと発展する。

言葉にすると簡単だが、実際は苦労の連続である。プロジェクトティームは，まずもって現場に定着しなければならない。その貧困極まりないコミュニティーの中に，自分たちの塒を確保し，活動の拠点を作ることから始めなければならない。電気も水道もない所である。デング熱も，今年は大分発生していると聞く。それでも、グループの若者達は、特に気負いもなく、ごく自然に、明るく活動している。とれた野菜を集めて，格付けしている者，コミュニティーでの体験ツアー募集のホームページを作成している者、シンガポールからの学生グループに，ノウハウをレクチャーしている者、売店で売り上げをチェックしている者、皆個性的で、しっかりと自分の足で歩いている者達。今日、国連の総ての機関を始め、こういったフィールドでの活動の最先端は、このようなＮＧＯの若者達で支えられているのである。いわゆる、‘ハコモノ’タイプのＯＤＡでは決して達成できない、必要とする人達に実際に届く支援の手は，彼等が差し伸べているのである。

チェンライに先立ち、チェンマイで2日から行われた，山岳、少数民族に関するワークショップで、中田好美さんという，ＮＧＯの若者に会った．彼女は，北タイの６山岳民族（カレン、アカ，モン，リス，ラフ，ミエン）の中で、教育、文化、環境、人権の活動を展開しているＩＭＰＥＣＴ協会の東南アジアネットワークプロジェクト担当で，チェンマイ大卒である。今回のワークショップ参加者のための資料入れとして、山岳民族の作った布地のショールダーバッグを斡旋してくれたのが彼女だった。タイで美味しいコーヒーに出会ったことがない，という私に、タイ北部の山岳地帯で，山岳民によって栽培された、フェアトレードラベルの美味しいコーヒーがある、という話しをしてくれた。バンコクに帰った私達に、彼女から、その‘ラナー’という銘柄のコーヒーが届いた。彼女の、‘タイ山岳民族の市民権問題’というレポートとともに，心に沁みるようなメッセージが添えてあった。そして、そのコーヒーの味は、、、、、、、、、、金沢生まれの彼女自身のように、透明で、少し酸味のある爽やかな味だった。（了）

ダンさん達のアイディアで生まれた面白い製品；
竹筒でできた入れ物の中に入っている素焼きの小さな鳥の形をした笛
竹でできた表面に市松模様のあるテーブル（肩を脱臼して農業ができなくなってしまった
チャビヤゥさんが３ヵ月の技術指導で作れるようになった）

Regional　Workshop　on Sustainable Resource Management by Indigenous Peoples
Chiang Mai, Thailand, Dec.2~5,2002

Distinguished Guests,
Dear Participants,
Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the ILO’ s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, it gives me great
pleasure to welcome representatives of indigenous groups, governments and academia
from Cambodia, China, India, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam to this
regional workshop.

I would like express our sincere thanks to the German Government, particularly to
INVENT and GTZ for their generous contribution to the event, and to IMPECT for
their support in organizing this event. I would also like to express our thanks to
observers from UN and donor agencies for their participation, despite their busy
schedules.

In addition to the direct efforts of GTZ, INVENT, IMPECT and ILO-INDISCO and
their commitment to assisting indigenous peoples in their development, this workshop
takes place in a large context. In 1994, the General Assembly of the UN declared the
Year 2002 to be the International Year of Mountains. The Decade oh the World’s
Indigenous people aims to bring the plight of this most disadvantaged group of our
global society to the attention of the development community and the world public at
large.

Both the UN University, in its Tokyo Declaration, and the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization in its background document, pointed strongly to the fact that mountain
Areas, while being of utmost importance to everyone, nevertheless are among the
world’ s most neglected regions. Five hundred million people in mountain regions live
below the poverty line, and a significant number are indigenous and tribal peoples.

Mountains are among the most conflict-prone zones on earth. Mountain areas are
ecologically extremely vulnerable, being particularly affected by the effects of global
warming. Mountain area provides fresh water to half of the world’s population. All
these facts make it clear that now is the time to assist the guardians of these
mountain regions, the indigenous and tribal communities, in achieving sustainable
livelihoods and creating Decent Work.

The International Year of the Mountains, as declared by the UN, is an important
event given the traditional lack of policies and laws specifically aimed at mountain areas, the highland communities, find themselves in danger of neglect.

Issues such as recognizing local property rights, ensuring gender equity, and protecting mountain diversity all greatly affect the lives of millions of highland communities, many of whom are indigenous and tribal peoples. Unfortunately, many of these issues have not been fully addressed up until now. The International Year of Mountains therefore provides a wonderful opportunity to renegotiate the response to mountain challenges within a holistic framework.

The regional workshop is expected top make an important contribution in this direction by examining, in a comprehensive and multi-faceted way, past lessons learned and methods that could be used to promote sustainable livelihoods. Sustainable resource management, taking into account a comrehensive range of issues, would appear to offer the greatest potential to effectively promote the sustainable livelihood of indigenous and tribal peoples.

The wokshop will tackle the issues by examining three main aspects: Mountain ecology, economy and culture.

Mountain ecosystem are both complex and essential to Earth’ s biological diversity. They are, however, under increasing stress due to climate change and economic exploitation.

Although mountain environment are often resource rich, it is estimated that 80% of the world’ s mountain population live below the poverty line. For this reason, we need to address the economic challenges, and embrace every possible opportunity to halt this alarming trend.

Culturally, indigenous mountain peoples have complex knowledge systems. These are valuable and essential intrying to balance economic challenges with ecological dmands. These three aspects are just as important as a whole as they are individually in promoting Sustainable Resource Management for Sustainable Livelihoods.

I would like to outline some of the history of the ILO’ s involvement in issues related to indigenous peoples.

The ILO’ s concern with indigenous and tribal peoples goes way back to the early years of its existence. In 1921, the ILO decided to undertake studies on the conditions of indigenous workers. The involvement came about as consequence of ILO investigations in the early 1920’ s into the forced labour of so-called ‘native populations’ in colonies. Indigenous and tribal peoples were, by definition, part of this colonial workforce, and the same impulse that give rise in 1930 to the Forced Labour Convention (No. 29), subsequently led to further standards and development work of indigenous peoples. The Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention (No.107), was adopted in 1957.

Convention　No.107　was updated in 1989 because of the growing awareness in the sixties and seventies of the weakness in the original convention. The International Labour Conference, at its 76th Session in 1989, adopted the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (No. 169). The basic principle of the Convention is respect for the cultures and ways of life of these peoples, and their right to continued existence and development according to their own aspirations. The Cinvention sets the minimum international standards, leaving the door open for higher standards in countries choosing to go further.

Conventions Nos. 107 and 169 are the only international legal instruments to address a number of issues vital to indigenous and tribal peoples. They contain articles on consultation and participation, working conditions, land and natural resource rights, vocational training, social security and health, education and environment. The two conventions cover particularly the minimum standards dealing with land rights, which is the most important issue for the continued survival of indigenous and tribal peoples. Seven articles on land rights in Convention No.169 elaborate on procedural requirements for safeguarding these rights and making them truly effective. The Convention also encourages indigenous and tribal peoples to organize themselves and to strengthen their institutions by recognizing the validity of traditional legal systems and by supporting the rights if indigenous and tribal peoples to be involved in the planning and implementation of policies and programmes that affect them.
Convention No.107, ratified by twenty-seven countries, is closed to further ratification, but remains in effect for those countries that have already ratified it. Seventeen countries have ratified Convention No.169, and we are led to believe that in another ten countries, including some from Asia, national legislations are considering its ratification.

In addition to its standard-setting function, the ILO has been providing technical assistance programmes for the benefit of indigenous and tribal peoples since the early 1950s. The largest among these, Andean Indian Programme, lasted approximately twenty years and covered some 250,000 indigenous families in seven Latin American countries. The ILO later worked closely with nomadic peoples in North Africa. At present, two ILO technical cooperation programmes are specifically working with indigenous and tribal peoples. These are the EGALITE-based project to promote ILO policy in indigenous and tribal peoples and the Cooperative Branch-based INDISCO programme.

The ILO experience in Latin America and Africa has since been used by the INDISCO Programme in Asia, where more than half of the world’s indigenous and tribal peoples live.

The INDISCO programme was initially funded by DANIDA, but is now also supported by other donor agencies including the Netherlands, CIDA, AUSAID, AGFUND, Germany, UNDP, WFP, UNV and the Rabobank Foundation of the Netherlands. INDISCO is an inter-regional support mechanism to help indigenous and tribal communities in selected counties, on a pilot basis, to promote their own systems of employment and income generation, safeguarding their traditional values, practices and cultures, and supporting them to become self-reliant through capacity-building and human resource development activities.

From the project design stage to implementation, monitoring and evaluation, the INDISCO programme collaborates fully with indigenous and tribal peoples through their traditional institutions, NGOs and cooperative and self-help grassroots organizations. All pilot projects under INDISCO respect and guarantee indigenous and tribal people’s individual and/or collective rights. All pilot projects are run by local NGOs and people’s organizations, local project managers and local extension workers selected by indigenous and tribal peoples themselves.
The main components of INDISCO projects are promotion of land tenure security, strengthening local economies through job creation and micro finance, advancement of the status of indigenous women, promotion of indigenous knowledge systems and practices in natural resource management and environment, preservation of indigenous culture, as well as capacity building through training and awareness raising.

At present, INDISCO is working with indigenous and tribal communities in India, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Two projects formulation exercises were recently finalized in India and Bangladesh. In India, five INDISCO projects in Bihar, Orissa, Madhya, Pradesh and Gujarat have been successful in creating employment for more than 5,000 peoples over the last four years, and establishing more than 100 grassroots organizations, including cooperatives. These local organizations helped ensure that all parties ere able to participate in the project implementation stage.

According to the recent self-evaluation reports from INDISCO ’s partners in India, environmental protection initiatives, including wasteland development , introduction of forest conservation, establishment of tree nurseries, afforestation and lift irrigation practices have yielded promising results of the future.

INDISCO has just completed two pilot projects in Thailand and Vietnam. In Thailand, the pilot project concentrated on local curriculum development with three tribal groups in their own languages in northern Thailand. This project has now been taken over by the INDISCO partner NGO IMPECT, and is being implemented in tandem with the Government of Thailand. In Vietnam, INDISCO worked with two ethnic groups in Yen Bai Province in cooperation with Yen Bai Women’ s Union and Yen Bai People’ s Committee. The Rabobank Foundation also contributed technically and financially to this project. INDISCO is now in the process of expanding this project.

INDISCO’ s largest development package is in Philippines, with a budget of over US$2 million. Twelve projects are being implemented by partner peoples7 organizations, concentrating on employment generation, literacy and skills training, ancestral domain management, environmental protection and natural resource management. The ongoing UNDO-SPPS project has been working with the newly-established National Commission on Indigenous Peoples(NCIP) to pave the way for smooth implementation of the Indigenous Peoples Right Act of 1997.

Finally, I would like to again express my appreciation to all participants in this workshop, which brings together people from a range of backgrounds all interested in these important issues. INVENT, GTZ and ILO-INDISCO　 and IMPECT have all played major roles in making this workshop a reality, while I would also like to express our appreciation to the representatives of indigenous and tribal people from Cambodia, China, India, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Welcome also to the national and international experts, who will add to the scope of our discussions.

The presence of people from such diverse background serves to demonstrate the potential of partnership and collaboration in tackling complex issues. We are certain that this will result in a productive and informative examination of these important issues.

You have all come to Chiang Mai with the objective of exploring ways to protect and develop sustainable livelihoods for indigenous mountain communities. The promotion of sustainable livelihoods is a worthy cause because it offers a holistic approach to the complex challenges facing highland indigenous communities.

I hope you will rise to the challenges and that this workshop will be a platform through which all your experience, enthusiasm and energy can be shared so that an agreement can be formed as a basis for future action.

Thank you.