Date: 09/02/2021

Format: text message questions via WhatsApp; answers provided by WhatsApp audio and later transcribed

Interviewer: Laura Simões
Interviewee: Augusto Pessin

LS: Good afternoon, Augusto. You recently took part in a public hearing regarding the vaccination of Indigenous peoples living in urban areas. Could you tell us a little about this event and why this issue is being raised at this moment?

AP: Good afternoon. Yes, I recently participated in a public hearing at the City Council of São Paulo about Indigenous health, specifically regarding the vaccination of Indigenous peoples living in urban contexts in the city of São Paulo. This vaccination effort has been systematically denied, as we discovered through the work of a multi-organizational task force called Vacina Parente.

The event was called by councilwoman Juliana Cardoso and was attended by other council members as well. The Municipal Health Department had also been invited but only showed up at the very end of the hearing — and even then, simply to say that they did not have answers to many of the questions presented in a formal request submitted on August 19th.

This issue of vaccinating Indigenous peoples is being discussed right now because it is extremely urgent. Scientific studies show that Indigenous peoples are much more vulnerable to both infection by and the effects of the COVID-19 virus. This is why ADPF 709 — a Claim of Non-Compliance with a Fundamental Precept, ruled by Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) — guaranteed the right of all Indigenous people, including those living in urban settings, to receive priority access to vaccination. However, this ruling has been systematically disregarded, placing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people — particularly those living in urban areas — at serious risk. That is why this issue is so important: it concerns the protection of the right to vaccination and, therefore, the right to life of all Indigenous populations living in urban settings.

LS: How did you participate in the hearing?

AP: My participation involved sharing the history of the struggle to secure access to vaccination for some Indigenous individuals. I shared that, although we were ultimately successful in obtaining vaccinations, it was a very difficult process that required legal intervention — which is a serious problem, because we cannot accept that Indigenous people are denied the legitimacy to demand their rights directly, without needing lawyers or any other kind of mediation or guardianship.

So I shared what we learned about how it was possible to secure those vaccinations. But throughout this process, we also discovered that the denial of vaccines was not limited to just the cases I had been following — it was actually affecting an uncountable number of Indigenous people. The key issue we identified was that the Municipal Immunization Plan — and neither the national one — had included the portion of the ADPF 709 ruling that guarantees the right of Indigenous peoples living in urban contexts to be vaccinated.

LS: What impacts do you foresee as a result of this public hearing?

AP: As a result of this public hearing, I believe it will be possible to deepen the accountability of the responsible public agencies, potentially through the formation of a municipal parliamentary inquiry commission to investigate exactly why and how it was only in July that the Municipal Immunization Plan finally included Indigenous people living in urban settings.

Considering that the ADPF 709 ruling happened in March, there was already a delay of several months — and even then, the inclusion was done incorrectly. They began demanding an “ethnic certificate” from Indigenous people — a document that doesn’t even exist — which also goes against the ADPF decision, which clearly states that self-identification is sufficient.