New York, March 22 (MExN): Indigenous women attending the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 60) have urged member states to prioritise the recognition of indigenous women as subjects of individual and collective rights, emphasizing their part as indigenous peoples with their own forms of development, governance, language, culture and worldview.
This was part of the political statement from participating members of the International Indigenous Women Forum attending the NGO CSW Forum, being held in New York from March 14-24, which was also attended by Adviser to the Indigenous Women Forum of North East India, Khesheli Chishi.
As bearers of ancestral knowledge, indigenous women around the world have contributed to the development of their identity. However, gender inequalities have impacted differentially on indigenous women considering the ethnic discrimination that they face in different areas.
Thus, the women urged the house that empowerment of indigenous women is considered as a theme in a future session at the Commission on the Status of Women as a strategy to eradicate poverty and promote development from the perspective and with the participation of indigenous women.
They also requested the recognition of the contribution of indigenous women to the “conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity through our knowledge, innovations and practices.”
Indigenous women of the Americas, Asia, Africa, Arctic and Pacific, remembering the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, organized by the United Nations, met to reaffirm the advances achieved at international arenas in the last twenty years, recognizing that Beijing was a landmark in the indigenous women´s movement and set the basis of indigenous women’s claims as indigenous peoples and as women. Since then, they have been advocating and achieving advances in this respect and exercising their individual and collective rights.
The statement highlighted the commitments by the Member States through two resolutions adopted by the CSW: “Indigenous women: beyond the ten-year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action”—the indigenous women demanded the adoption of measures to guarantee the full and effective participation of indigenous women at all levels; and “Indigenous women: key actors in poverty and hunger eradication”—the women urged the States and the United Nations agencies to adopt measures oriented to empower indigenous women and accomplish their rights.
“We reaffirm the Political Position Document and Plan of Action resulted of the World Conference of Indigenous Women held in Lima, Peru where we expressed our demands and priorities related to the international processes and the urgent need to empower indigenous women at all levels,” noted the statement.
The women also reiterated the three paragraphs of Outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly, known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, which referred to indigenous women with commitments by Member States related to empowerment of indigenous women, elimination of violence against indigenous women and invitation to different organizations of the UN system, highlighting an invitation to the CSW to consider the issue of the empowerment of indigenous women at a future session.
Also, it was recommended that the CSW “consider the empowerment of indigenous women as a priority theme of its 61th session, in 2017, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration.”
