Sustainable Development Networking Programme

INDIGENOUS WOMEN:
TAKING CONTROL OF THEIR DESTINY

"Now the women are rising up. And when the women rise up from a nation, they are the strongest voice that can be heard and it's a voice that cannot be silenced."

Diane Reed,
President of the Cree Society for Communications

As part of the crusade that led to the recognition of the international indigenous movement, indigenous women in all parts of the world are organizing themselves and creating their own networks and groups to voice their concerns and hopes.

The United Nations International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2004) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (held 4-15 September 1995 in Beijing, China) are providing indigenous women with unique opportunities to increase public awareness of their situation. Indigenous women's special concerns include survival of their communities and of their cultural identity and recognition of the central role of women in the efforts to advance the interests of indigenous people everywhere. They hope that the International Decade and the World Conference will result in UN Member States adopting constitutional reforms incorporating the rights of indigenous people and that more countries will ratify ILO Convention No. 169, which calls for the protection of the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. Indigenous women want to see concrete results at the end of the Decade, including improvements in health, education and housing, cleaner and more adequate water supplies and the adoption of policies regarding land demarcation.

Indigenous women successfully lobbied to have their concerns included in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women. In those documents, Governments and other actors of society are asked to take particular measures to promote and strengthen national policies and programmes in favour of indigenous women in the following areas:

• human rights: by promoting the human rights of indigenous women and translating human rights instruments into indigenous languages;
• health: by reducing the negative effects of environmental degradation on the health and life of indigenous women;
• education: by promoting a multicultural approach to education, taking into consideration the needs, aspirations and cultures of indigenous women.
• economic development: by supporting the economic activities of indigenous women, taking into account their traditional knowledge, and encouraging their access to capital;

More and more indigenous women are taking the lead in supporting their communities and have been in the forefront in advancing the cause of their people. Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu Tum, a Mayan Indian, was internationally honoured for promoting the human rights of indigenous people. She lived in exile in Mexico from her native Guatemala, a country ravaged by a long and destructive civil war, for more than 10 years and used her own personal experience of torture and injustice to fight for the rights of Indians everywhere. In 1992, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her activities in promoting peace.

Participation of indigenous women in national political structures, though insufficient, is increasing. Some indigenous women now participate in national politics at the highest levels. In Ottawa, for instance, Mary Simon, an Inuit, was recently appointed Canada's first Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs (the circumpolar nations being Canada, the United States, Russia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark, under whose authority the Home Rule Government of Greenland administers the territory of 42,000 Inuit). Miss Simon will be dealing with environmental questions and the effects of development projects on people.

In Australia, Lois O'Donoghue, an Aborigine, started to fight for the rights of her people in the 1950s, when she was refused admission to a nursing school because of her race. She fought for five years and finally won the right to register in a teaching hospital. She has been involved in the aboriginal movement at the grass-roots and national levels ever since. Today, she is the Chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, an organization responsible for advancing the cause of aboriginals in Australia. She sees women as the backbone of all indigenous organizations and central to the development of their communities.

Many more women are not internationally known but are making a difference in their societies. In Colombia, Eulalia Yagari, at the age of 14 and against her father's will, was the first woman in her community to participate in a public awareness meeting on land recovery, a process successfully used by some indigenous groups to regain possession of their ancestral lands. In Eulalia's village, 900 people were living on 60 hectares of land. Because of her work, her community was eventually granted more land as a result of the land recovery campaign.

Eulalia also played an important role within her tribe in trying to revive their cultural traditions. She consulted with the elder women of her tribe, who taught her old songs and stories. She later taught the music to children in the village's child-care centre, a cultural programme that gave the children a new sense of pride and self-esteem. Today, Eulalia is a member of the Provincial Assembly of Antioquía, in the north-west of Colombia, and is still devoting herself to social issues to alleviate the distress of her people.

In 1986, in the Northeast of Brazil, Eliane Potiguara created GRUMIN (Grupo Mulher - Educaçao), an organization which mobilizes indigenous women, holds conferences and seminars and organizes vocational training to raise indigenous women's awareness and to help them take control of their own lives. Ms. Potiguara who experienced problems as an indigenous woman herself, lived for a time in Rio de Janeiro and saw the way indigenous people were discriminated against in the cities. This gave her the impetus to return to her village to help her people, the Potiguara, who were suffering from social disintegration. GRUMIN has started a variety of projects, including opening a pharmacy of herbal medicines and creating community gardens, where families that have lost their land can grow food. Today, GRUMIN has grown into a nationwide organization, with an extensive network of offices.

In Arequipa, in southern Peru, Celina del Carpio, who works at the National University of San Augustin, is very active in her community and tries her best to improve the life of indigenous women. Convinced that women can move forward in society only through their own empowerment, she holds meetings to inform women about their rights. As a result of their activism, women have organized soup kitchens to feed the hungry and the poor and have also launched a programme entitled "the glass of milk", to provide milk to indigenous children who are malnourished.

Indigenous women face tremendous challenges. Like most women in the world, they have been victims of discrimination for centuries. But as indigenous women, they have been doubly discriminated against: for being indigenous people and for being women.

Discrimination against indigenous people has included forcible removal from their traditional lands; exclusion from mainstream political, economic and social spheres; and genocide.

As indigenous women, in certain communities, they have often been kept in a situation of dependency. They have been marginalized, refused access to land or subjected to other forms of discrimination.

In certain regions, the status of indigenous women was greatly reduced at the time of colonization, with the imposition of new political, economic, social and cultural systems. As stated at the Forum on Indigenous Women of Ecuador, which was held 7-11 September 1994, "Colonialism comes down to the loss of our lands, to the introduction of a language with no sense of poetry, of an irrational political and administrative structure irrespective of the laws of nature, and of the forceful imposition of a Judeo-Christian religion in which woman is synonymous with sin."

Once indigenous women played an important role in their communities: they were, along with men, part of the decision-making processes affecting the future of the whole group. They were consulted and their words listened to. They were respected.

In many cases, the introduction of foreign values destroyed this equilibrium. It had a negative impact on the relationship between men and women, as well as on women's role within their communities. Women were relegated to a position of secondary importance and the traditional complementarity of roles was broken.

In their daily lives, within their families and communities, indigenous women deal with hardships stemming from lack of basic services and from inappropriate or no education, among other problems. These factors greatly impair their ability to participate fully in society.

Education and Training

Innovative measures have been recently introduced to remedy this situation. At schools in Guatemala and Bolivia, for example, indigenous children are taught in their own languages as well as in Spanish, helping to preserve their cultural identity. In certain areas, an education system based on linguistic and cultural diversity has been developed for each ethnic community.

Poor education means that most indigenous women can expect low wages, if they can find jobs at all. According to a report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1991, aboriginal women usually obtain qualifications in the traditional female fields of health, education and office skills. Those without qualifications mainly work in the informal sector as domestic or farm labourers.

Thus, indigenous women find it very difficult to escape the cycle of extreme poverty, exploitation and low-paid employment. According to the International Labour Organization, incomes earned by Aboriginals in Australia are half the national average and Aboriginal unemployment is five times higher than the national unemployment rate.

There is no doubt that investing in women - giving priority to women's education and training - ultimately benefits all the members of the community. And for indigenous women, appropriate education is especially important, since they are often the primary guardians and transmitters of their rich, diversified culture. In Bolivia, the United Nations Voluntary Fund for the International Year of the World's Indigenous People financially supported a project by the Organización de Mujeres Aymaras del Kollasuyo (OMAK) to teach Andean indigenous women the concept of democracy and human rights. The project emphasized the importance of the process of voting as a significant step towards enabling indigenous women to empower themselves and have their concerns included on the national political agenda. The training was carried out through a series of seminars and radio programmes.

Economic and Social Aspects

There has been a dramatic shift in the general concept of technical assistance, which used to impose without consultation a certain kind of development on the populations concerned, thus creating long-term dependency. This top-down approach proved to be very ineffective. Now, emphasis is being put on self-reliance and independence.

The importance of women's participation in the development process of their countries has been recognized and stressed in various United Nations fora. Some United Nations agencies have engaged in bilateral programmes with indigenous communities to enable them to regain some economic autonomy. Indigenous women prove to be very receptive to income-generating activities. In Guyana, for instance, a UNDP project helped revive the traditional skill of the woven Wapishana hammock and market it. Hammocks of higher quality were produced and sold at US$ 400 a piece, instead of the $15 previously obtained.

Caroline Kumomoru and her sister Sanau are members of the Masai Mothers and Daughters Association in Narok, Kenya. They have started the Aramat project in Mosiro, the driest part of the district, where, because of drought, the Masai are losing their livestock, the main source of food for the community. The project has two main objectives: to improve the quality of livestock by crossing local cows with zebu cows and to teach farming techniques to the Masai by introducing subsistence crops such as sorghum, millet, cassava, maize, beans and vegetables. Masai women were very much interested in the project, since they are the ones responsible in their community for feeding their families. A group of agricultural instructors was later organized to show women from other areas how to grow staple foods during the rainy season. Now women are selling their excess yield at the market and starting to become economically independent.

With many men from indigenous communities migrating to urban areas in search of employment, women have to take on greater responsibilities.

In spite of their strong involvement and participation in the economic aspects of their communities, indigenous women are still confronted with harsh social problems. Poverty and the lack of job opportunities that affect these communities give rise to alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence and prostitution. Once Were Warriors, a recent movie produced in New Zealand and directed by the Maori Lee Tamahori, vividly portrays the disintegration of a Maori family affected by domestic violence and the difficulty of coping with cultural conflicts, a reality of life for many of that country's indigenous people.

Another area of concern for indigenous women is limited access to medical care. At the Forum on Indigenous Women of Ecuador, women drew attention to the alarming deterioration of health conditions within their communities. Even though many villages are provided with basic health services, these services are still inadequate and do not cover the needs of the population.

In 1990, for instance, out of 1,000 indigenous births in Ecuador, 517 children died of respiratory and intestinal infections or malnutrition, easily curable diseases. Certain Governments maintain that the reason for the absence of adequate medical facilities is the remoteness of tribal communities and the reluctance of certain indigenous groups to use the available health centres, rather than neglect.

In Venezuela, the Anu people of the Laguna de Sinamaica face serious health problems owing to industrial development, which has caused environmental problems: water is highly polluted, and fish, the main source of food, are increasingly scarce. Consequently, indigenous populations in the area suffer from malnutrition and various diseases. Local organizations have launched projects involving women and designed to improve health conditions and to teach women about immunizing children, nutrition and hygiene, as well as women's health issues.

The land-tenure situation is also a major issue for indigenous people. In northern Arizona, in the United States, indigenous families have been resisting relocation from their reservations, in the face of private developers taking over their commmunities' land and sacred sites. To support their action, a group of elder women have organized themselves and started a weaving project. Through the sales of hand-woven rugs, women supply resisting families with income for survival. The rugs are being sold in 24 states and, in 1991, the income derived from the sales amounted to US$ 500,000.

The determination of indigenous women to take charge of their destinies is unequivocally expressed in the growing number of indigenous women who are taking on leadership roles in their communities and participating in national and international fora. At the international level, the Decade of the World's Indigenous People provides an excellent opportunity for indigenous women to develop new relationships with the United Nations system and with other indigenous groups, thus laying the ground for greater cooperation and communication. Strengthening these partnerships will greatly enhance local and national efforts to solve the problems faced by indigenous women around the world.

Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information DPI/1717/HR/Rev.1--December 1995