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Addressee: CEDAW, UNESCO, UNDP, UNIFEM
Paragraph Number: 6
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
Noting that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women makes no reference to indigenous women and that it does not take into account the specific nature of the gender dimension of racial discrimination, the Forum recommends that the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women:
a. Pay special attention to the issues related to maintaining the integrity of indigenous women and the gender dimension of racial discrimination against indigenous peoples;
b. Organize a meeting, in collaboration with indigenous women, UNIFEM, UNESCO and UNDP, with the objective of beginning a process to develop and adopt a general recommendation on indigenous women, including women living under colonization.
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Addressee: SPFII
Paragraph Number: 15
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum, to underscore its long-term commitment to the issue of "indigenous women", recommends that its secretariat:
a. Assist IANWGE in its efforts to mainstream indigenous women’s issues throughout the United Nations system;
b. Strengthen liaison with the Forum’s portfolio holders in order to provide feedback on indigenous women’s issues in each of the mandated areas to the Forum;
c. Promote the monitoring and reporting on the implementation process of programmes within the United Nations system designed to address indigenous women’s issues and the assessment of their impact;
d. Increase outreach to indigenous women’s groups and assist them in networking and information-sharing;
e. Create strong liaison relationship with universities and other institutions of learning and research with the aim of mainstreaming indigenous women’s issues in academic curricula, assist indigenous women’s organizations in identifying and effectively utilizing available education resources and programmes, and promote capacity-building through fellowships, grants etc.;
f. Build broad-based awareness of indigenous women’s issues by increasing the Forum’s media outreach (e.g., through newsletters, radio, web site, publications in journals on indigenous issues).
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Addressee: World Health Organisation (WHO)
Paragraph Number: 90
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum urges WHO to attend its sessions, and encourages WHO to submit a report to it at its fourth session, responding to recommendations made by the Forum at its first to third sessions. The Forum regrets that WHO was unable to respond to its recommendations made at its second session, in particular those contained in chapter I, section B, paragraphs 16, 63-64, 68, 74, 79 and 82.
Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 10
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum recognizes the instrumental role of the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE) and welcomes the identification of "indigenous women" as an emerging key issue, the creation of a task force on indigenous women and the inclusion of an item on indigenous women in its 2005 agenda. The Forum requests its secretariat to transmit to it the results of the 2005 session of IANWGE on indigenous women.
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 94
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum requests Governments to prepare reports on their experience and case studies as to how they are addressing indigenous people’s health and the Millennium Development Goals, and to submit their reports to the Forum at its fourth session.
Area of Work: Health
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 14
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
To ensure that the concerns and priorities of indigenous women are properly taken into account, the Forum urges States:
a. To take concrete steps to increase the participation of indigenous women in governance and decision-making structures at all levels;
b. To clearly identify and define the issues and needs of indigenous women, taking into account regional and local cultural differences;
c. To develop and strengthen structures and mechanisms for the advancement of indigenous women within the wider agenda for the advancement of women; to clearly define their mandate by taking into account the holistic and cross-cutting nature of indigenous women’s issues; to allocate appropriate resources to those institutions; and to provide support from the national political leadership to those structures;
d. To ensure the implementation of international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, regarding indigenous women, and to integrate those instruments into the formulation of a coherent national public policy for indigenous women (including legal frameworks, budget allocations and specific programmes and projects addressing indigenous women’s issues);
e. To ensure equal access of indigenous women to decision-making and governmental bodies, political parties, judiciary, trade unions etc.;
f. To lend support to NGOs (both international and national) dealing with issues involving indigenous women;
g. To increase indigenous women’s capacity for decision-making and political participation, and to ensure that adequate numbers of indigenous women are placed in positions of political leadership as well as in governance and public administration.
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Paragraph Number: 89
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The goals of the Forum in this area are the promotion of cooperation, the exchange of information and the development of partnerships, as well as to improve coordination by facilitating regular contacts and reports. The Forum intends to address and report on this theme on an annual basis. The Forum, reaffirming its recommendations on health made at its first and second reports, in the spirit of the theme of its third session (Indigenous women), recommends that all relevant United Nations entities, especially WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA, as well as regional health organizations and Governments:
(a)Fully incorporate the principle that health is a fundamental human right in all health policies and programmes, and foster rights-based approaches to health, including treaty rights, the right to culturally acceptable and appropriate services and indigenous women’s reproductive rights, and stop programmes of forced sterilization and abortion, which can constitute ethnic genocide;
(b)Further develop and disseminate information about innovative strategies in health services to indigenous women, informed by indigenous concepts and understanding of health, wellness, healing, illness, disease, sexuality and birthing so as to ensure universal and accessible health-care services for indigenous women and girl children, and make available adequate financial and technical support for comprehensive, community-based, primary health services and health education, incorporating traditional indigenous components;
(c)Train and employ qualified indigenous women to design, administer and manage their own health-care programmes;
(d) Set up monitoring mechanisms for indigenous communities to report abuses and neglect with the health system to national health authorities, and put in place the legal framework to effectively address these issues;
(e) Encourage States to include and accredit traditional, indigenous health practitioners (physicians), including traditional birth attendants (midwives), and integrate them into state health-care systems, and give full recognition to the medicinal knowledge and medicines of these indigenous practitioners;
(f) Augment HIV/AIDS programmes by providing educational materials in indigenous languages and by using specially trained indigenous HIV/AIDS health workers to conduct outreach services and home care to indigenous communities, including voluntary testing for HIV/AIDS;
(g) Ensure that indigenous peoples, especially women, have access to all information relating to their medical treatment and to secure their prior informed consent to medical treatment;
(h) Provide appropriate health services and protection services, including safe houses, to displaced refugee and migrant women and women and girl children victimized by trafficking for prostitution;
(i) Implement the recommendations of the international consultation on health of indigenous peoples, held in Geneva at WHO in 1999, with special emphasis on the recommendations concerning the health of women and girls and the role of women in health care, indigenous knowledge and service provisions;
(j)Develop, in conjunction with indigenous women health providers, programmes to inform and sensitize indigenous women and men about cultural practices which have negative impacts on health, including female genital mutilation, child marriages and violence against women and the girl child in the domestic context, in order to encourage them to take precautions and safeguard the health and well being of the indigenous family;
(k)Ensure that the treatment of diseases is balanced by the promotion of health through the support of physical activity, sports and physical education in order to address escalating health concerns through prevention.
Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 9
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum underlines the importance of technical cooperation and capacity-building programmes regarding and involving indigenous women, and in that respect recommends that such programmes conducted by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, ILO, UNDP, among others, include projects regarding and involving indigenous women.
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Paragraph Number: 63
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum urges the United Nations funds, agencies and programmes and multilateral cooperation entities, including UNIFEM, to adopt policies and strengthen existing funds for financing and supporting indigenous women’s participation, strengthening their own participation and social development options in all initiatives that promote their cultural identities.
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Addressee: World Health Organisation (WHO)
Paragraph Number: 93
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum requests the United Nations Development Group, which includes WHO, to make a report on how it is addressing the Millennium Development Goals, with particular focus on indigenous peoples. The report should identify obstacles and constraints at the state, regional, and global levels, and should make recommendations to address these obstacles. The report should be presented to the Forum at its fourth session.
Area of Work: Health
Paragraph Number: 13
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
Violent conflicts and militarization fundamentally affect the lives of indigenous women and their families and communities, causing violations of their human rights and displacement from their ancestral lands. Yet indigenous women do not see themselves as passive victims but have taken up the roles of mediators and peace builders. Recognizing the profound concerns of the impact of conflict situations on indigenous women, the Forum recommends:
(a) That IOM and other relevant United Nations entities incorporate the needs and priorities of women and girls as ex-combatants in the design and implementation of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes, and ensure their full access to all resources and benefits provided in reintegration programmes, including income-generation and skill-development programmes;-
(b) That UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, WHO, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme, and other field-based agencies collect data on the situation of indigenous women living in conflict areas. Such data would be valuable for analysis and programme development;
(c) That IANWGE integrate indigenous women issues into its strategies on women, conflict, peace and security;
(d) That the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other United Nations human rights bodies ensure that statutory provisions prohibiting war crimes and crimes against humanity cover criminal acts perpetrated on a gender basis since their occurrence remains particularly acute, especially the high incidence of mass rape and mutilation during armed conflict;-
(e) That UNHCR give priority to indigenous women and their families who are displaced internally and externally by force due to armed conflict in their territories.
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Paragraph Number: 86
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum reiterates its health recommendations made at its first and second sessions, in particular those contained in chapter I, section B, paragraphs 63 to 82 of its report on its second session.2
Area of Work: Health
