WUNRN
VIOLENCE AGAINST INDIGENOUS WOMEN
& GIRLS: A COMPLEX PHENOMENON
Shimreichon
Luithui (AIPP) and Helen Tugendhat (FPP)
4 July, 2013 - This briefing note, published by the Asia Indigenous Peoples
Pact (AIPP) and Forest Peoples Programme, is intended to develop discussion and
thought about the complexity of the challenges of violence against indigenous
women and girls. Work being done by indigenous women’s organisations in Asia
and around the world has increasingly drawn attention to the need for specific
analysis and understanding to be established of the nature and forms of such
violence. This note also intends to shed light on the need to respect rights in
totality, to simultaneously respect and protect the individual and collective
rights of indigenous women.The nature of violence against indigenous women and
girls is often assumed to be the same as the broader nature of violence against
women. However as shown through the experiences of indigenous women in Asia and
recounted here, violence against indigenous women and girls often takes very
specific forms. Violence can be enacted on the collective cultural, social and
economic rights of indigenous peoples and such violence has very specific
impacts on women and girls. How we understand this violence and how we
understand the impact of disturbing the relationship between indigenous women
and the lands and resources on which they depend will change how we fight such
impacts.
Indigenous peoples in Asia are gaining increasing recognition of their status as indigenous peoples, but many continue to face a lack of recognition by their own governments and others. In this statement we are referring to peoples who may be known by other terms in their own countries, as ‘ethnic minorities’, or ‘hill tribes’, or ‘adivasi’, and our reference is inclusive of all peoples who chose to self-define as ‘indigenous’ regardless of national government terminology.
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