UNPO welcomes the publication of the report by the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of Cultural Rights, Alexandra Xanthaki, following her country visit to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in November 2024. Submitted to the Human Rights Council at its sixty-first session, the report validates findings that UNPO and its member, the Congress of World Hmong People (CWHP), have continuously documented and raised with UN mechanisms, and constitutes an urgent call to action for the Lao government.
Failure to Recognise Indigenous Peoples and Minorities
The Lao government’s persistent refusal to recognise Indigenous Peoples and ethnic minorities has long been a central concern for UNPO. The Hmong, who have faced decades of systematic discrimination and targeting, are among the most oppressed groups in the country. Their history of marginalisation, compounded by the government’s relentless pursuit of large-scale development projects on their ancestral lands, has left communities increasingly vulnerable to displacement, cultural erasure and violence. In this context, the denial of indigenous status is not a legal technicality — it is a tool that strips the Hmong of the international protections specifically designed for peoples in their situation, protections that would otherwise safeguard their land rights, language, religious practices and right to self-determination.
The Special Rapporteur’s report confirms that this refusal leaves Indigenous Peoples without the legal protections they are owed under international law, finding that many groups in Laos “fulfil the criteria for being considered as ethnic minorities or Indigenous Peoples.” She further finds that the government’s insistence on treating all groups identically is incompatible with international human rights standards, which require the distinct circumstances of different communities to be taken into account. The consequences of this approach are plain: the report confirms systemic assimilation policies that disproportionately harm non-Lao-Tai groups, and the Special Rapporteur notes that highland communities were described to her by officials as having “backward” practices in need of correction — a stark reflection of the discrimination that UNPO and the CWHP have documented against the Hmong for years.
Forced Resettlement and Land Rights
Development-driven dispossession of indigenous communities from their ancestral lands — lands to which the Hmong’s cultural identity is inextricably tied — is confirmed by the Special Rapporteur as a serious and ongoing pattern. She finds that resettlement policies fall disproportionately on “highland ethnic communities”, that compensation mechanisms fail those without formal land titles, and that without proper safeguards, such policies “amount to forced and illegal land-grabbing.”
The report further confirms the devastating cultural impact of large-scale infrastructure projects, including hydropower dams, on indigenous livelihoods and ways of life. Critically, the Special Rapporteur calls on the government to stop treating subsistence and nature-based livelihood systems as “obstacles to development rather than assets” — a reframing long advocated by UNPO.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent
The Special Rapporteur’s findings on free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) are unambiguous. She concludes that the government has reduced participation to mere notification, that communities face pressure to agree to plans with no real avenue to refuse, and that legal provisions may actively prohibit opposition to resettlement. This, she finds, falls far short of the FPIC standards to which Laos is bound, and she calls for explicit recognition of the right of affected communities to refuse resettlement.
In the case of the Hmong, UNPO has documented numerous cases in which community members, particularly in the Xaisomboun province, have been forcibly relocated without compensation, legal recourse or consultation. Rather than consultation, the Hmong have faced military force as a mechanism of displacement, with those who resist facing arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearances and violence. The Lao government’s “turn land into capital” strategy has denied Hmong access to agricultural land, while large-scale development projects are carried out on their ancestral territories.
For the Hmong, the absence of free, prior and informed consent is part of a broader pattern of dispossession that severs communities from the lands and resources upon which their cultural identity, livelihoods and ways of life depend.
Reprisals, Civic Space and Discrimination
The Special Rapporteur’s report also confirms the climate of fear and repression that UNPO has consistently documented. “Strict restrictions on speech, assembly and association” and “harsh reprisals against human rights defenders” directly undermine cultural rights and prevent meaningful engagement with international mechanisms. This is a reality the Hmong community knows acutely, as reflected in UNPO’s documentation of reprisals against individuals who engage with UN processes.
UNPO and the Congress of World Hmong People welcome this report as a significant step toward international accountability for the violations suffered by the Hmong and other indigenous and minority communities in Laos. We call on the Lao government to implement the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations without delay, and urge development partners and UN entities operating in the country to heed her warning against supporting projects that fall short of human rights standards.
UNPO remains committed to advocating for the rights of the Hmong people and all unrepresented and marginalised communities in Laos, and will continue to engage with UN mechanisms to that end.
