Oral Intervention by Eleanor P. Dictaan – Bang-oa on behalf of the Asia Indigenous Women’s Network, Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education (Tebtebba) and the Indigenous Women’s Forum of North East India (IWFNEI) during the 68th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Poverty is a result of the accumulation of resources and power. Twenty-nine years ago, Indigenous Women gathered in Beijing and let me start off by quoting a part of their call for the world we want. “We, the women of the original peoples of the world have struggled actively to defend our rights to self-determination and to our territories which have been invaded and colonized by powerful nations and interests. We have been and are continuing to suffer from multiple oppressions; as Indigenous peoples, as citizens of colonized and neo-colonial countries, as women, and as members of the poorer classes of society. In spite of this, we have been and continue to protect, transmit, and develop our Indigenous cosmovision, our science and technologies, our arts and culture, and our Indigenous socio-political economic systems, which are in harmony with the natural laws of mother earth. We still retain the ethical and esthetic values, the knowledge and philosophy, the spirituality, which conserves and nurtures Mother Earth. We are persisting in our struggles for self-determination and for our rights to our territories. This has been shown in our tenacity and capacity to withstand and survive the colonization happening in our lands in the last 500 years.”
Today, this multidimensional poverty persists and is galvanized by the impacts of climate change. The UNESCAP 2024 Report projected that the SDGs can only be achieved in 32 years given the current pace of implementation. It also highlights the urgency of climate action in the region which is either off-track or in reverse.
Asia is home to 2/3 of the world’s indigenous peoples. As I speak here today, my indigenous sisters in Asia and the world over are battling poverty from all dimensions borne by the cumulative impacts of historical discrimination resulting to a general condition of lack of or inaccessibility of basic services like education, health and infrastructure. Of the trickles that reach the communities, there is lack of effective information, mechanisms and capacities to facilitate maximization to their full benefit.
As I speak here today, indigenous women human rights defenders, their communities and organizations are continuously being persecuted for protecting their land, resources and territories which are essential to their economic security while ensuring a healthy planet for the next generations. Loss of lands and resources, destruction of women’s means of subsistence, their knowledge and practice in the name of development and climate mitigation continues to impoverish and marginalize indigenous women and girls.
On this note, the Asia Indigenous Women’s Network, the Indigenous Peoples International Centre for Policy Research and Education and the Indigenous Women’s Forum of North East India are advancing these recommendations to the UNCSW 68th Session:
1) We urge States, the UN Agencies and the donor community to ensure the operationalization of the Agreed Conclusions of CSW66, particularly paragraphs 11, 58, (dd) and (qq) consistent with CEDAW General Recommendation 39 on the Rights of Indigenous Women and Girls;
2) We will continue our work to advance the principles of the Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women in the different context and platforms of engagement and decision-making. We commend initiatives for comprehensive approaches for poverty reduction. We also note the intended benefits of social protection programs and safeguard policies. For indigenous women and girls, however, all these has to be anchored on their individual and collective rights as Indigenous Peoples. The link between the protection and fulfillment of fundamental rights and freedoms in responding to poverty and the realization of full human potential has to be clearly drawn in order to achieve the SDGs.
3) In the spirit of the principle of inclusion, we urge development actors especially the States, donor agencies and the UN to:
a) ensure effective participation of indigenous women with State institutions at all levels specially on access to lands and natural resources, access to public services, development planning, implementation and governance within and beyond their communities and
b) invest on data disaggregation based on ethnicity and support citizen – generated data. Indigenous women’s contributions are indispensable in achieving climate action goals and the broader 2030 Agenda.
We are, and, we will be here. We shall remain committed to a future with justice and dignity for women and girls, in all diversity! xxx