In October, UNPO, in collaboration with the Congress of World Hmong People (CWHP), submitted a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighting severe human rights abuses against the Hmong population in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic over the past five years. The UNPO and CHWP also submitted input to the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights, Ms. Alexandra Xanthaki, in preparation for her visit to Lao PDR in November.
Although the Hmong constitute nearly 10% of Laos’ population, they are neither recognized as an indigenous group nor afforded basic protections. Concentrated in the resource-abundant but isolated Xaisomboun region, the Hmong, especially the ChaoFa community in Phou Bia, face severe human rights abuses and institutionalized discrimination. The rise in foreign-sponsored economic development initiatives, such mining and dam building, has intensified military aggression against the Hmong, resulting in extrajudicial killings, torture, and forced disappearances. The ChaoFa Hmong population has plummeted from 30,000 in 1975 to fewer than 100 individuals today. Many have been forcibly relocated to government-run camps with abysmal living conditions, while those remaining in the jungle endure constant threats from military operations and lack access to basic needs.
The report to the Special Rapporteur outlines the systemic discrimination and human rights abuses faced by the Hmong in relation to the denial, and active erosion of Hmong culture. Military incursions against the Hmong community have been extensively documented by the UNPO, CWHP, and other international organizations, with a sharp escalation in disappearances, physical abuse, and killings in the past five years. Reports of atrocities have surfaced despite the information blockade in effect, while the deployment of heavy artillery and chemical weapons have severely damaged the environment and health of Hmong individuals. Members of the Hmong community attempting to escape the military violence have faced torture, extrajudicial killings, and forced disappeared as a result of the military operations. Land seizures and forced relocations to military-controlled camps have also harmed the ChaoFa Hmong, who live in substandard circumstances and are constantly surveilled by the military while facing physical abuse, persistent interrogation, and family separation.
The report to the Special Rapporteur outlines the systemic discrimination and human rights abuses faced by the Hmong in every sphere of life. Inherent to this is the denial, and active erosion of Hmong culture. The report details how Hmong eviction from their ancestral land is detrimental to their indigenous cultural heritage, rights and the spaces in which they can practice their culture. Moreover, the lack of teaching in Hmong leads to the further exclusion of Hmong children, and accordingly the community, from Lao society. Finally, it argues that the restrictions on freedom of religion further highlights a lack of the right to access and enjoy cultural heritage and restrictions on public spaces for the exercise of cultural rights.
The UNPO and CWHP reiterate that the Xiasomboun region represents the most concentrated targeting of Hmong culture and peoples, so much so that the situation is not exemplified through the erosion of specific cultural practices, but the Lao Government’s attempt to forcefully and fatally eradicate the Hmong population in the region. Women and children are especially vulnerable. This extreme case highlights a lack of desire to preserve Hmong culture within governance frameworks. The government has denied international observers, including UN Representatives, and aid access to the region for decades. Accordingly, the UNPO and the CWHP strongly recommend that the Special Rapporteur requests to visit the region due to the severe nature of the human rights abuses committed. The UNPO and the CWHP thank the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights for her engagement with civil society, wish her luck for her country visit, and remain at the procedures’ disposal should any further information be required.
Given the deterioration of the human rights situation facing the Hmong in Laos over the past five-year UPR cycle, UNPO and CHWP put forward the following recommendations.
Recommendations:
- Put an immediate end to the military violence against the Hmong ChaoFa communities who have been forced into hiding in the jungle of Northern Laos, and in particular cease using heavy artillery and chemical weapons; provide and allow humanitarian aid to be delivered in the region;
- Eliminate, in law as well as in practice, all forms of discrimination, persecution and other human rights violations against persons belonging to ethnic, religious or other minority groups;
- Take measures to put an end to the arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of political opponents, human rights defenders and other civil society representatives, respecting their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association;
- Act upon the commitment to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; furthermore, accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to end the impunity for the ongoing crimes against humanity in the Phou Bia region;
- Recognise the indigenous status of the Hmong ChaoFa in Laos, subsequently developing the necessary legal frameworks to protect indigenous peoples in Laos; the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples should serve as a guiding framework for this;
- Develop a legal framework to protect ethnic minorities from land grabbing practices and forced relocations as a consequence of economic activities that deprive them from their own means of subsistence; provide already relocated communities with fair compensation for their losses;
- Re-evaluate policies with regards to natural resource-related and other large industries, as well as hydroelectric dams; conduct assessments into their environmental, socio-economic and human rights impact, taking into specific consideration the dependency of ethnic minorities to land and other natural resources;
- Address the significant disparities in health and living standards between ethnic minority and majority groups; this includes providing the necessary assistance to remote geographical areas with high rates of child and maternal mortality, as well as expanding the education system to include education in minority languages;
- Conduct independent and transparent investigations into persons who have been victims of enforced disappearances;
- Ensure the inclusion of women in decision-making processes as well as legislative and governmental roles through affirmative action policies; address the existing structural barriers that prevent women from minority groups from accessing such policies; and
- Halt the widespread abuses of the Laotian military such as rape, sexual enslavement and human trafficking of ChaoFa Hmong women in the Phou Bia region; take effectively legal action by prosecuting the individuals who have committed these crimes.
Click here to download UNPO and CWHP’s UPR submission.
Click here to download UNPO and CWHP’s report to the Special Rapporteur.