WINNIPEG – Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs will addressi the delegation at the upcoming 6th World Forum on Human Rights. The conference will be held in Marrakech, Morocco from November 27th – 30th, 2014.
When Grand Chief Nepinak was in Thunder Bay for the Full Moon Memory Walk, he shared with the audience that “From my front porch, I see Lake Superior, and from my back porch I see the Rocky Mountains”. Now it appears the AMC Grand Chief is expanding his view by a lot of miles.
“The realization of our inherent and treaty rights in the context of the Canadian Constitution are frustrated by a persistent and often purposeful effort to deny our individual and collective rights by state governments” stated Grand Chief Derek Nepinak. “I intend to discuss the fact that willful blindness and omissions of national and provincial governments not only denies the realization of individual and collective rights of Indigenous Peoples, the consequences accruing to us in the nation state of Canada are a form of genocide that is not yet defined in either Canadian or international law” he further stated.
The 6th World Forum on Human Rights anticipates that 5-10,000 delegates from civil society and organizations will converge in Marrakech, Morocco, to continue building a space for public debate on Human Rights.
The 5th World Forum on Human Rights was held in Brazil in 2013 and attracted 6,000 registered delegates speaking on a wide range of issues including access to education, poverty and violence on the realization of human rights.
Grand Chief Nepinak is travelling as an invited guest to the World Forum by the organizing committee of the World Forum. He will be speaking on specific issues pertaining to the state of indigenous children in care, the tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, the education apartheid for on- reserve students in Canada, the forced relocation of Indigenous families due to flooding, and other matters pertinent to state denial of the human rights of Indigenous Peoples in Manitoba.
“I’m honoured to travel as an invited guest to the World Forum and speak to these matters of importance on behalf of my children, my family, the collective of our members at the AMC and my nation” concluded Grand Chief Nepinak.
