UN Decade Indigenous Peoples + Indigenous Women’s Beijing Declaration
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: May 22, 2006
safety, empowerment, and dignity of
with the:
Indigenous Peoples
today welcomed the launch of a Programme of Action for the Second International
Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples – an initiative offering
recommendations on the environment, development, education, health and human
rights – as representatives from across the globe gathered at United Nations
Headquarters in New York to meet on the issue.
“Today, I call on all States to work with indigenous peoples to translate the
Programme into reality on the ground,” he said in a video message to
the fifth annual session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which
runs through 26 May.
“Let us aim to make it mean something positive – a change for the better – in
the life of every indigenous person, wherever he or she may live,” Mr. Annan
told.
The Secretary-General recalled that UN Member States had reaffirmed their
commitment to preserve and maintain the knowledge, innovations and practices of
indigenous communities in the Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit. They
recognized the sustainable development of indigenous peoples as crucial in the
fight against hunger and poverty, and pledged to present for adoption a UN
declaration on indigenous peoples’ rights as soon as possible.
The Programme of Action for the Second Decade was meant to give practical
effect to those words for the benefit of all indigenous peoples – from the
northern reaches of the Arctic to the pastoralist communities of Africa, Mr.
Annan said.
“The adoption of the declaration, this long-held aspiration of the world’s
indigenous peoples, will be one of the top priorities of the newly created Human
Rights Council,” said Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs
and Coordinator for the Second Decade José Antonio Ocampo.
“The history and current realities of indigenous peoples clearly require that
the promotion and protection of indigenous peoples’ human rights continue to be
high on the international agenda,” he added.
Mr. Ocampo encouraged members of the international community to adopt and
implement specific plans of action for the Decade and to contribute to the Trust
Fund on Indigenous Issues.
Milialani Trask of the Indigenous Caucus called for the redefinition of the
social indicators on which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were based,
saying they should not be framed by market and cash-based analyses, since the
“one-dollar-a-day” parameter for poverty failed to adequately measure poverty in
the world’s vast and varied indigenous communities.
Re-examining the MDGs would require taking a hard look at the systematic
racism and non-recognition of human rights that indigenous peoples faced,
injustices which perpetuated poverty among them, she said.
Forum Chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz noted that the resolution in which
the Programme of Action was adopted used the correct term under international
law “indigenous peoples,” putting to rest the attempt to use “indigenous
people.”
The creation of legal standards and rules through the adoption of an
international declaration would ensure respect for all the human rights and
fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples. In some countries, where the rights
of indigenous peoples had been barely acknowledged, the declaration would be
particularly important, she added.
Repeating the main objectives of the Decade, Ms. Tauli-Corpuz said: “Let us
pledge in this Hall of the United Nations General Assembly our commitment to
achieve these objectives, so that in the year 2015 we will come back and be
proud of what we have achieved in terms of ending discrimination,
marginalization, oppression and extreme poverty of indigenous peoples, because
we took seriously the challenge to create partnerships for action and
dignity.”
____________________________________________________________________
http://www.ipcb.org/resolutions/htmls/dec_beijing.html
Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women
NGO Forum, UN Fourth World Conference on Women Huairou, Beijing, peoples
Republic of China
1. The Earth is our mother. From her we get our life, and our ability
to live. It is our responsibility to care for our mother and in caring for our
mother, we care for ourselves. Women, all females are a manifestation of Mother
Earth in human form.
2. We, the daughters of Mother Earth, the Indigenous women present at
the NGO Forum of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, have come
together to collectively decide what we can do to bring about a world which we
would like our children and our children’s children to live in. We acknowledge
and build upon earlier declarations which evolved from earlier meetings and
conferences, like the 1990 Declaration of the Second International Indigenous
Women’s Conference, the Kari-Oca Declaration of 1992, and those of various
regional conferences of Indigenous women, and the consultations and conferences
done in preparation for this Beijing Conference.
3. This declaration is drafted in recognition of the existence of the
UN Declaration of the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous peoples,
the Draft Declaration of the Rights of the Indigenous peoples, the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Nairobi
Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, Agenda 21 and the Rio
Declaration on Environment and Development, the Cairo Declaration, and the
Copenhagen Social Summit Declaration. While we agree with most of the provisions
of ILO convention 169, we cannot endorse a Convention which allows national
states to remove Indigenous peoples from their lands with military force.
4. We stand in unity behind this “1995 Beijing Declaration of
Indigenous Women” which is the fruit of our collective efforts to understand the
world and our situation as Indigenous women, critique the Draft Platform for
Action, and articulate our demands to the international community, the
governments, and the NGO’s.
5. 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.
6. The “New World Order” which is engineered by those who have abused
and raped Mother Earth, colonized, marginalized, and discriminated against us,
is being imposed on us viciously. This is recolonization coming under the name
of globalization and trade liberalization. The forces behind this are the rich
industrialized nation-states, their transnational corporations, financial
institutions which they control like the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). They will cooperate and compete
among themselves to the last frontiers of the world’s natural resources located
on our lands and waters.
7. The Final Agreement of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the establishment of the WTO has created new
instruments for the appropriation and privatization of our community
intellectual rights through the introduction of the trade-related intellectual
property rights (TRIPS). This facilitates and legitimizes the piracy of our
biological, cultural and intellectual resources, and heritage by transnational
corporations. Our Indigenous values and practice of sharing knowledge among
ourselves, and mutual exchange will become things of the past because we are
being forced to play by the rules of the market.
8. Bioprospecting, which is nothing but the alienation of our
invaluable intellectual and cultural heritage through scientific collection
missions and ethnobotanical research, is another feature of recolonization.
After colonizing our lands and appropriating our natural resources, they are now
appropriating our human genetic resources, through the Human Genome Diversity
Project. Their bid for the patenting of life forms is the ultimate colonization
and commodification of everything we hold sacred. It won’t matter anymore that
we will disappear because we will be “immortalized” as “isolates of historic
interest” by the Human Genome Diversity Project.
9. It is an imperative for us, as Indigenous peoples, to stand in
their way, because it means more ethnocide and genocide for us. It will lead to
the disappearance of the diverse biological and cultural resources in this world
which we have sustained. It will cause the further erosion and destruction of
our Indigenous knowledge, spirituality, and culture. It will exacerbate the
conflicts occurring on our lands and communities and our displacement form our
ancestral territories.
Critique of the Beijing Draft Platform for Action
10. The Beijing Draft Platform for Action, unfortunately, is not
critical at all of the New World Order.” It does present a comprehensive list of
issues confronting women and an even longer list of actions which governments,
the UN and its agencies, multilateral financing institutions, and NGO’s should
do. It identifies “the persistent and increasing burden of poverty” as the
number one critical concern. It acknowledges that “most of the goals of the
Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies…have not been achieved.” It also
acknowledged that “in the past decade the number of women living in poverty has
increased disproportionately to the number of men.”
11. However, it does not acknowledge that this poverty is caused by
the same powerful nations and interests who have colonized us and are continuing
to recolonize, homogenize, and impose their economic growth development model
and monocultures on us. It does not present a coherent analysis of why is it
that the goals of “equality, development, and peace,” becomes more elusive to
women each day in spite of three UN conferences on women since 1975. While it
refers to structural adjustment programs (SAP), it only talks about mitigating
its negative impacts, not questioning the basic framework undergirding SAPs. It
even underscores the importance of trade liberalization and access to open and
dynamic markets, which to us, pose the biggest threat to our rights to our
territories, resources, intellectual and cultural heritage.
12. The clear bias of the New World Order for big industries, big
agri-business corporations, etc., has meant the decimation of traditional
livelihood and economic activities of Indigenous peoples like hunting, food
gathering and harvesting, reindeer herding, subsistence agriculture, fishing,
small handicraft businesses, etc. The non-economic activities of Indigenous
women have been ignored and rendered invisible, although these sustain the
existence of Indigenous peoples. Our dispossession from our territorial land and
water base, upon which our existence and identity depends, must be addressed as
a key problem. The Platform is very vague on this.
13. The critical areas of concern it has identified are also critical
for Indigenous women. While it correctly identifies unequal access to education
and health as areas of concern, it does not question the basic Western
orientation of the prevailing education and health systems. It does not reflect
the fact that these systems have perpetuated the discrimination against
Indigenous peoples. It also does not acknowledge the role of Western media,
education, and religion, in eroding the cultural diversity which exists among
Indigenous peoples. These Western systems hasten ethnocide. It does not give
proper recognition and importance to Indigenous health care systems and the role
of its practitioners.
14. The violence and sexual trafficking of Indigenous women and the
increasing numbers of Indigenous women becoming labor exports, has been
aggravated by the perpetuation of an economic growth development model which is
export-oriented, import-dependent, and mired in foreign debt. Military
operations conducted on Indigenous peoples lands use rape, sexual-slavery, and
sexual trafficking of Indigenous women, to further subjugate Indigenous peoples.
The development of tourism to attract foreign capital has also led to the
commodification of Indigenous women and the dramatic increase in the incidence
of HIV/AIDS. This reality is not addressed by the Platform. Domestic violence
and the increasing suicide rates among Indigenous women, especially those who
are in highly industrialized countries are caused by psychological alienation
and assimilationist policies characteristic of these countries.
15. While it talks about the effects of persecution and armed
conflict, it does not acknowledge that many of these armed conflicts are
occurring on Indigenous peoples lands. These armed conflicts are the result of
the aggressive actions of transnational corporations and governments to
appropriate the remaining resources on Indigenous peoples territories despite
the assertion of Indigenous peoples to their right to control these resources.
It does not recognize that the resolution of armed conflict, especially those
happening on Indigenous peoples lands, lies in the recognition of our rights to
self-determination and to our lands and waters. The phrase “internally
displaced” in the text is bracketed, when in fact, this is the reality for many
Indigenous peoples all over the world.
16. Its recommended ‘strategic objectives’ and actions focus on
ensuring women’s equal access and full participation in decision-making, equal
status, equal pay, and integrating and mainstreaming gender perspectives and
analysis. These objectives are hollow and meaningless if the inequality between
nations, races, classes, and genders, are not challenged at the same time. Equal
pay and equal status in the so-called First World is made possible because of
the perpetuation of a development model which is not only non-sustainable but
causes the increasing violation of the human rights of women, Indigenous
peoples, and nations elsewhere. The Platform’s overemphasis of gender
discrimination and gender equality depoliticizes the issues confronting
Indigenous women.
Indigenous Women’s Proposals and Demands
17. Within the context of our understanding of our situation and our
critique of the “New World Order” and of the Beijing Draft Platform for Action,
we present the following demands.
18. That all governments and international non-governmental and
governmental organizations recognize the right of Indigenous peoples to
self-determination, and enshrine the historical, political, social, cultural,
economic, and religious rights of the Indigenous peoples in their constitutions
and legal systems.
Recognize And Respect Our Rights To Self Determination
19. That the governments amend the ILO Convention 169 to remove the
section which allows nations states to remove Indigenous peoples from their
lands through military force, and thereafter ratify and implement it.
20. That the 1994 Final Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
peoples be adopted and ratified by governments without any revisions and
reservations. That the full participation of Indigenous peoples in the
open-ended working group of the Commission of Human Rights to further elaborate
on the draft will be ensured.
21. That the “s” in term Indigenous ‘peoples’ be put in all United
Nations documents, declarations, and conventions. That, hereafter, we will not
be referred to as ethnic minorities or cultural communities but as Indigenous
peoples.
Recognize And Respect Our Right To Our Territories, And Right To
Development, Education, and Health
22. We demand that the international community and governments
recognize and respect our rights to our territories. This includes our right to
decide what to do with our lands and territories and to develop in an
integrated, sustainable way, according to our own cosmovision.
23. We urge the governments who are opening up our territories to
foreign investors especially to mining corporations, to respect these rights.
Full disclosure of development projects and investments to be put into our
territories should be done. We should be fully involved in making decisions on
these matters. Indigenous Peoples’ lands which have been ravaged by mining
corporations, or which have become dumping sites of toxic, radioactive and
hazardous wastes, should be rehabilitated by the corporations or the governments
which allowed this devastation.
24. That the governments, international organizations and NGO’s assume
their responsibility to alter their policies and allocate resources for the
inter-cultural and bilingual educational system and the development of
Indigenous health care systems according to our cultural principles and
cosmovision. That books, audio and video materials, etc. be screened and purged
of discriminatory, racist, and sexist content.
25. That the governments implement realistic policies which will solve
the problem of illiteracy among Indigenous and peasant women, providing them
access to inter-cultural and bilingual education which respects Indigenous
cosmologies, promotes non-sexist formative education which puts women and men in
touch with the land.
26. That the governments and international community implement health
policies which guarantee accessible, appropriate, affordable, and quality
services for Indigenous peoples and which respect and promote the reproductive
health of Indigenous women. That budget allocations to health and other social
services be increased to at least twenty percent of the national budget and that
a significant amount of this goes to Indigenous peoples communities.
27. That the Indigenous health care systems and practices of
Indigenous peoples be accorded the proper recognition and respect and the roles
of Indigenous health practitioners and healers be further enhanced.
28. That the dumping of hazardous drugs, chemicals, and contraceptives
on Indigenous peoples communities be stopped. We demand that coercive family
planning services, like mass sterilization of Indigenous women and coercive
abortion programs be stopped. That population policies like transmigration be
condemned and halted.
29. We demand that uranium mining taking place in our lands and
nuclear testing in our territories and waters be stopped. If no uranium mining
is done then there will be no nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, and nuclear
accidents.
Stop Human Rights Violations And Violence Against Indigenous Women
30. That the United Nations create the necessary mechanisms to monitor
the Indigenous peoples situation especially those facing the threat of
extinction and human rights violations and to stop these ethnocidal and
genocidal practices.
31. Call on all the Media and Communication Systems to realize that
Indigenous women refuse to continue to be treated and considered as exotic,
decorative, sexual objects, or study-objects, but instead to be recognized as
human beings with their own thinking and feeling capabilities and abilities for
personal development; spiritually, intellectually, and materially.
32. Demand for an investigation of the reported cases of sexual
slavery and the rape of Indigenous women by the military men happening in areas
of armed conflict, such as those within Karen territories in Burma, Chittagong
Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, etc. The perpetrators should be persecuted and the
survivors be provided justice and rehabilitation and services.
33. Demand for an investigation of the forcible mass sterilization and
anti-fertility programs done among Indigenous women. Identify which
international and national agencies are responsible for these and make them
accountable.
34. That all acts of discrimination against Indigenous Women be
considered and punished as a crime.
35. That the governments create juridical and social instruments
adequate to protect women from domestic and state violence.
36. That Indigenous customary laws and justice systems which are
supportive of women victims of violence be recognized and reinforced. That
Indigenous laws, customs, and traditions which are discriminatory to women be
eradicated.
37. That all internally displaced Indigenous peoples be allowed to
return to their own communities and the necessary rehabilitation and support
services be provided to them.
Recognize And Respect Our Rights To Our Intellectual And Cultural
Heritage; Our Rights To Control The Biological Diversity In Our Territories
38. We demand that our inalienable rights to our intellectual and
cultural heritage be recognized and respected. We will resist all processes
seeking to destroy this heritage and alienate our resources and knowledge from
us.
39. We demand that the western concept and practice of intellectual
property rights as defined by the TRIPS in GATT, not be applied to Indigenous
peoples communities and territories. We demand that the World Trade Organization
recognize our intellectual and cultural rights and not allow the domain of
private intellectual rights and corporate monopolies to violate these.
40. We call for a stop to the patenting of all life forms. This to us,
is the ultimate commodification of life which we hold sacred.
41. We demand that the Human Genome Diversity Project be condemned and
stopped. Those responsible for this project should be asked to make an
accounting of all the genetic collections they have taken from Indigenous
peoples and have these returned to the owners of these genes. The applications
for patents to these genetic materials should be stopped and no applications,
thereafter, should be accepted and processed. Indigenous peoples should be
invited to participate in the ongoing discussions in UNESCO on the bioethics of
the Human Genome.
42. We demand that governments at the local, regional, and national
levels, recognize our intellectual community rights and support us in our
defense of these rights, an obligation which they have undertaken as Parties to
the Biodiversity Convention.
43. We will continue to freely use our biodiversity for meeting our
local needs, while ensuring that the biodiversity base of our local economies
will not be eroded. We will revitalize and rejuvenate our biological and
cultural heritage and continue to be the guardians and custodians of our
knowledge and biodiversity.
Ensure Political Participation Of Indigenous Women And Enhance Their
Capabilities And Access To Resources
44. We demand equal political participation in the Indigenous and
modern structures of socio-political structures and systems at all levels.
45. We will dialogue with non-Indigenous women’s organizations and
formations to implement a realistic plan of solidarity with us.
46. We ask that NGO’s that work with Indigenous women be guided by
principles of mutual respect and promote the full participation of Indigenous
women in action and in articulating issues regarding Indigenous women and
Indigenous peoples.
47. Call on the funding agencies and donor agencies that support and
promote women’s organizations and programs, to share space and financial
resources in order to promote the development of Indigenous women.
48. We will work towards reinforcing our own organizations, enhancing
communications between us, and gain the space that is rightfully ours, as
members of specific identities (nations and cultures) within the Decade of
Indigenous peoples and other institutions that represent governmental and
non-governmental organizations.
49. We will work towards the holding of an International Conference of
Indigenous Women which will be held as part of the celebration of the
International Decade of the World’s Indigenous peoples.
50. We give our sincere thanks to the Chinese Organizing Committee and
the Chinese people for their efforts in hosting and providing hospitality to us.
Approved And Signed On 7 September 1995 At The Indigenous Women’s Tent,
Huairou, Beijing, China.
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