Summary: Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, Gender and Development

Indigenous women and leadership

This session included presentations of ideas and concrete examples of indigenous women as leaders in action, both within their communities and as representatives of their communities. There was a strong atmosphere of consensus and cooperation, and a clear and unanimous will to build on past achievements. Elizabeth Reichel presided over a group with varying experience of international organizations, which highlighted the ease with which indigenous women leaders are equal to the task of taking their place on the world stage. 

Ms. Elizabeth Reichel (Colombia) introduced the issues of indigenous women as key agents of sustainable development who are often displaced by unsustainable development in the context of an increasing destruction of cultural and biological diversity. She spoke of the present as a key moment in the history of indigenous peoples, when proposals and recommendations must address concrete goals.

'Beijing +5' Women's Summit of 2001 and examples of indigenous women leaders 
Ms. Miliani Trask, of Na Koa Ikaika O Ka Lahui Hawaii and a member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, praised the 'Beijing +5' Women's Summit of 2001 for having brought indigenous and 'mainstream' women closer. She recommended more work to bring indigenous women into key roles in policy-making bodies, and talked about the need to address human rights for women, more than gender Equality, in view of the different roles among and between women and men in traditional societies. She presented an overview of the origins and persistence of the Western legacy that discriminates against indigenous rights to lands and culture. She then gave five model examples of contemporary indigenous women leaders who empower through organizational systems, such as Koreen Kumar of the Collective of Asian Women which recently succeeded in having the rape of women in time of war made a crime against humanity by the World Court.

Complementarity of male and female principles for sustainable indigenous lifestyles
Ms. Leonor Zalabata, of Confederación Indigena Tayrona (Colombia), presented the origin and meaning of women and the feminine principle in Aruaco (Northern South America) cosmology, and underlined the importance of the complementarity of male and female principles for sustainable indigenous lifestyles among her peoples. Comparing women to the mother earth and men to trees rooted therein, she described a world of interdependence whose strength depends on the depth of the roots and force of soils. She emphasized that women are the guardians of basic human values, and their political empowerment and educational roles allow them to implement these in their cultures. But a prerequisite is upholding rights to their territory and cultures, poverty being an impediment to sustainability Hence there is a need for a change of consciousness and to create new paradigms for humanity to be based on gender complimentarity and respect for basic human values.

Influence of the West in the nomadic Tuareg society
Ms. Talkalit Abondacrine, of Tin Hinane (Burkina Faso), then spoke of nomadic Tuareg society (Northern Africa - Tin Hinane), in which women who fight, travel and struggle for the rights of indigenous women are often marginalized by their own communities, which have adopted the Western-based idea that only men should have be political representatives who defend basic rights. She suggested that women be encouraged to be leaders through more education programmes, and proposed a quota for equal representation of indigenous women and men in the UN system.

Educational system in the village of Matamoulan in Africa
Ms. Nafissatou Tall, of Terre Vivante (Mauritania), spoke of the need to respect women's traditional educational and organizational structures in the face of development, and described their experience with an educational system based on women's age-sets, covering all ages, in the village of Matamoulan in Africa: children go to a traditional school early in the morning before going to a Western-style school for the rest of the day.

Human values often neglected in industrialized communities
Ms. Zalabata pointed out that, in many highly developed and industrialized communities, basic human values are often forgotten; the intangibility of these values makes them all the more vulnerable to neglect. But they are what has enabled so many indigenous people to survive the hundreds of years of colonial and neo-colonial oppression and may enlighten the rest of humanity for more sustainable life.

Indigenous women based structure without hierarchies
Ms. Elly Predervand described her organization, the Women's World Summit Foundation, which is creating an indigenous women-based structure without hierarchies on a global scale, whose objective is to find solutions to local problems. It encourages development where it is lacking, and simpler living in the richest countries of the North.

Conclusions
Members of the Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples have neither budgets and offices nor access to all other UN meetings involving indigenous issues. A vote was taken and unanimously passed for Ms. Trask's proposal for a crosscutting monitoring organization to connect the relevant international organizations (UNESCO, UNICEF, UNIFEM, WIPO) involved in indigenous issues. With proper infrastructure and support, the Permanent Forum could fulfil this function, and thus give a platform of vital importance to indigenous women leaders. The session participants expressed total support to encourage the UN to allow her as a Permanent Forum member to participate in the Sub-Commission of Human Rights and be engaged in decisions and meetings involving indigenous women's issues in the UN system.

Click here for all available presenters' documents
Click here for all available summaries

Please read about the summaries