Trask aims to improve health for indigenous
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
Pointing to increasing malaria, dengue fever and leprosy cases in the past 10 years, Native Hawaiian activist Mililani Trask noted that the poor health of indigenous people in the Pacific Basin is among the major problems in the region she represents as a new United Nations diplomat.
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"In the Pacific, there continues to be great poverty, acute health needs and the issue of decolonization," said Trask, named the Pacific Basin expert on the newly established 16-member Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council of the U.N.'s General Assembly.
Mililani Trask was named Pacific Basin expert on a United Nations indigenous-people panel.
"Although we individually represent the indigenous regions of the world, the indigenous members of the forum have agreed that we will work collectively to advance the status of indigenous people globally," Trask added.
The forum plans to meet twice a year, in New York and Geneva. The first meeting will be in New York on May 13.
"In a very real sense, the forum may provide an entry point for implementation of the principles of ethical globalization," Mary Robinson, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a written statement.
In announcing Trask's appointment to a three-year term, Robinson added, "The guidance and recommendations emanating from the permanent forum can and should make a significant contribution to improvements in the well-being of indigenous people."
An active participant in the U.N. system for 15 years, Trask has attended meetings in Vienna, Cairo, Beijing, Copenhagen, Sydney and South Africa. She was named to the Indigenous Initiative for Peace in 1993 by Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchu.
The U.N. presents a very different arena for issues, Trask said.
"People don't mince words at the U.N.," she said. "They appreciate truth and want to hear it because everything they deal with is a question of life and death. It's a very different environment than here."
Closer to home, Protect Our Native Ohana co-founder Shane Pale yesterday said he backed Trask's nomination to address the concerns of Native Hawaiian inmates and their families.
"We have personally submitted interventions to the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Geneva outlining the state's dismal incarceration statistics where Native Hawaiians make up more than 50 percent of the prison populations in men's, women's and youth facilities while making up only 20 percent of the general population," Pale said. "... Ms. Trask has a proven track record in defending and advocating for human rights here at home and in the national and international arenas."
