Hannah McGlade represents the Kurin Minang Noongar people, at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Ms. McGlade spoke to UN News at UN Headquarters, during the 2023 session of the Forum, which takes place between 17 and 28 April.

“I’ve been an activist in my community sine I was young. I decided to study law because I thought that I could help to improve our human rights situation. I was fortunate enough to be able to undertake a master’s degree in international human rights, so I’ve been using it as best I can at international forums, and also advocating for reforms in Australia, because our human rights situation is very dire.

My people, the Noongar, were violently dispossessed from their lands by the British, and were basically enslaved: my great grandmother was an indentured child labourer. People who resisted the very cruel laws of the time were incarcerated and taken from their countries by chains to an island prison, where many died. Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families, en masse, as part of a policy called assimilation.

This is our violent history. As I was growing up, we faced many issues, including racism and the targeting of Aboriginal people, including aboriginal youth, by police; violence against women; refusal of our land rights; and poverty.

Coded racism, rights denied

Today, there is still a lot of racism in the media and in society. We face serious human rights issues, including the removal of children from their mothers, the high incarceration rates of Aboriginal people, particularly children and young people, in conditions that are very inhumane.

Australia is not the country I grew up in, when openly racist, derogatory language was used. But there’s more coded racism now. For example, the terribly sad issue of Aboriginal child sexual abuse is used as an excuse for removing children from their families.

There’s a lot of resistance to our rights being recognized, even the right to have our own national indigenous body, which should not be argued about in this day and age.

In some ways our rights situation is getting worse, according to the government’s own data. We’re seeing more incarceration of Aboriginal people; more Aboriginal children being removed from their mothers and families, increasingly to non-Indigenous families where they lose their cultural identity; and we’re seeing more Aboriginal suicides as well.

These are the shocking, ongoing impacts of colonization and we know that systemic and institutional racism and discrimination is a key driver of these issues.

The fight for a voice in parliament

There have been some improvements. We are now looking at a national referendum to change the Australian Constitution, to enshrine a democratically elected Aboriginal voice in parliament, that will be consulted and heard on matters affecting Aboriginal people. This would represent a historic, very substantive reform to the Constitution.

I’m really hoping that we are going to make this change. But of course, we are a minority, just four per cent of the population, and a majority of Australians will need to vote in favour of the reform.

We’re also calling on Australia to adopt a national action plan based on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. That was a recommendation of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in 2014, and it still hasn’t happened. Australia cannot claim leadership internationally, without respecting its international commitments in respect to indigenous peoples.

The power of international law

This Forum is a real chance for us to raise indigenous human rights issues with the governments of the world and indigenous peoples of the world listening. Decisions made here may not be binding at a national level, but UN Member States do have an obligation to genuinely engage, and to uphold our rights as indigenous peoples.

Sometimes we have a better chance of influencing domestic reforms in our country by arguing our case before the UN and in UN forums: the UN is still a prestigious international forum that we know that our governments have to respect.

I’ve used UN mechanisms to advance the issue of violence against indigenous women in Australia; for over five years, I went to various UN treaty bodies and highlighted this issue and the failure of the government allocate resources and develop relevant policies. This eventually led to a commitment from the Australian Government to act.

We are a part of the UN and the World Affairs now. With the threat of climate change and our future in the balance, it should be very clear that indigenous peoples have their place in this dialogue.”

“Every time I talk about it, I cry,” she told UN News, describing how propaganda spread messages of hate that sparked a deadly wave of unspeakable violence. She lost 60 family members and friends in the mass slaughter.

Ahead of the UN General Assembly’s commemoration of the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Ms. Mutegwaraba spoke with UN News about hate speech in the digital age, how the 6 January attack on the United States Capitol triggered deep-seated fear, how she survived the genocide, and how she explained the events that she lived through, to her own daughter.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

UN News: In April 1994, a call was put out over the radio in Rwanda. What did it say, and how did you feel?

Henriette Mutegwaraba: It was terrifying. A lot of people think the killing started in April, but beginning in the 1990s, the Government put it out there, in the media, newspapers, and radio, encouraging and preaching anti-Tutsi propaganda.

In 1994, they were encouraging everyone to go to every home, hunt them down, kill kids, kill women. For a long time, the roots of hatred ran very deep in our society. To see the Government was behind it, there was no hope that there were going to be any survivors.

UN News: Can you describe what happened over those 100 days, where more than a million people were killed, mostly by machetes?

Henriette Mutegwaraba: It wasn’t only machetes. Any tortuous way you can think about, they used. They raped women, opened pregnant women’s wombs with a knife, and put people in septic holes alive. They killed our animals, destroyed our homes, and killed my entire family. After the genocide, I had nothing left. You could not tell if there was ever a house in my neighbourhood or any Tutsi there. They made sure there were no survivors.

UN News: How do you heal from that terror and trauma? And how do you explain what happened to your daughter?

Henriette Mutegwaraba: The genocide complicated our life in many ways. To be aware of your pain is very important, then surround yourself with people who understand and validate your story. Share your story and decide not to be a victim. Try to move forward. I had so many reasons to do that. When I survived, my young sister was only 13, and she was the main reason. I wanted to be strong for her.

For years, I didn’t want to feel my pain. I didn’t want my daughter to know because it was going to make her sad, and see her mother, who was hurt. I didn’t have answers for some questions she asked. When she asked why she doesn’t have a grandfather, I told her people like me don’t have parents. I didn’t want to give her an expectation that she was going to see me when she walks down the aisle and gets married. There was nothing to give me hope.

Now, she’s 28 years old. We talk about things. She read my book. She’s proud of what I’m doing.

UN News: In your book, By Any Means Necessary, you address the healing process and the phrase “never again”, connected to the Holocaust. You also spoke about the attack on the capitol in Washington, DC on 6 January 2021, saying you hadn’t felt that feeling of fear since 1994 in Rwanda. Can you talk about that?

Henriette Mutegwaraba: We keep saying “never again”, and it keeps happening: the Holocaust, Cambodia, South Sudan. People in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are being killed now, as I’m speaking.

Something needs to be done. Genocide is preventable. Genocide doesn’t happen overnight. It moves in degrees over years, months, and days, and those orchestrating genocide know precisely what they intend.

Right now, my adopted country, the United States, is very divided. My message is “wake up”. There’s so much propaganda happening, and people are not paying attention. Nobody is immune to what happened in Rwanda. Genocide can happen anywhere. Do we see the signs? Yes. It was shocking to see such a thing happening in the United States.

Racial or ethnic discrimination has been used to instill fear or hatred of others, often leading to conflict and war, as in the case of the Rwanda genocide in 1994.

UN News: If the digital age existed in 1994 in Rwanda, would the genocide have been worse?

Henriette Mutegwaraba: Totally. Everybody has a phone or television in a lot of developing countries. A message that used to take years to spread can now be put out there, and in one second, everybody in the world can see it.

If there was Facebook, Tik Tok, and Instagram, it would have been much worse. The bad people always go to youth, whose minds are easy to corrupt. Who is on social media now? Most of the time, young people.

During the genocide, a lot of young people joined the militia and participated, with a passion. They sang those anti-Tutsi songs, went into homes, and took what we had.

UN News: What can the UN do about quelling such hate speech and preventing a repeat of what that hate speech grew into?

Henriette Mutegwaraba: There is a way for the UN to stop atrocities. During the 1994 genocide, the whole world turned a blind eye. Nobody came to help us when my mother was being killed, when hundreds of ladies were being raped.

I hope this will never happen again to anybody in the world. I hope the UN can come up with a way to respond quickly to atrocities.

Wall of Rwanda Genocide victims’ names at the Kigali Memorial Centre

UN News: Do you have a message for young people out there maneuvering through social media, seeing images, and hearing hate speech?

Henriette Mutegwaraba: I have a message for their parents: are you teaching your kids about love and caring about their neighbours and community? That’s the foundation for raising a generation that will love, respect neighbours, and not buy into hate speech.

It starts from our families. Teach your kids love. Teach your kids to not see colour. Teach your kids to do what is right to protect the human family. That’s a message I have.

Over 200 international participants working with the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme had their first face-to-face meeting, in a bid to make one of the most revolutionary medical technologies which led the field in vaccine development against COVID-19, more widely and fairly available, in the places where it is most needed.

‘Lifesaving’ breakthrough: Tedros

“I am delighted to be here in Cape Town with our partners to support a sustainable model for mRNA technology transfer to give low and middle-income countries (LMICs) equitable access to vaccines and other lifesaving health products,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“I am immensely proud of the achievement of all those involved in this project; in less than two years we have shown that when we work collaboratively, we succeed collectively.”

Tedros was joined for the launch by South African ministers Dr. Joe Phaahla and Ebrahim Patel, together with high-level officials from funding countries, to review the progress of the programme, launched by WHO and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), in June 2021.

The meeting participants include partners from 15 countries in the programme, leading experts, industry, civil society representatives, and funders.

During the five-day meeting, participants will share progress and discuss critical enablers for the sustainability of the programme such as intellectual property issues and regulatory aspects, as well as the science of mRNA technologies and key applications relevant to other disease areas such as HIV and tuberculosis.

Vaccine equity

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that inequity exists in access to many health products, especially vaccines. As of March this year, more than three years after WHO declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), 69.7 per cent of the global population had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

However, this proportion remains below 30 per cent in low-income countries (LICs).

This programme aims to contribute to equitable access to mRNA vaccines by increasing the distribution of sustainable manufacturing capacity across LMICs, enhancing regional and inter-regional collaboration, and developing and empowering a local workforce through tailored and inclusive training and expert support.

Dr. Phaahla, Minister of Health South Africa, said: “What we see here today, is a moment in history, a programme that is aimed at empowering LMICs through a global collaborative network.

‘Thrilling’ progress

“I am thrilled to see the progress made in such a relatively short time and welcome the support from so many different countries – countries like South Africa that have a strong vibrant biomanufacturing capacity and that are willing to work together, learn from and share with each other.”

Afrigen in Cape Town and local vaccine maker Biovac were chosen last year by WHO for the pilot project to give LMICs the technological know-how and licences to manufacture COVID vaccines, and Afrigen has used mRNA sequencing to produce its own version of the inoculation, known as AfriVac 2121, and is currently scaling up that process to a level suitable for manufacturing vaccine batches to be used in Phase I/ II clinical trials to GMP standards.

In a parallel process, Afrigen will continue to carry out training and technology transfer to network partners.

According to news reports, the vaccine candidate will move to the human testing phase, in early 2024.