ENDING VIOLENCE AGAINST INDIGENOUS WOMEN AND GIRLS
a media interview by Afrihealth Optonet Association (AHOA) – CSOs global Network and Think-tank for Health and Development
We acknowledge all the indigenous women who have been murdered, violated and are missing, in all areas of the world. They are our friends, our daughters, our sisters and our mothers. They are our cousins and neighbors. To most of the world, these sacred souls are invisible. Not to us, which is why we are writing to you.
Violence against indigenous women is astronomically high. The World Bank estimates that 68 percent of indigenous women in Ecuador have experienced violence. In Cameroon, violence against two indigenous communities is estimated at 55 percent. Eighty-four percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime, while indigenous women in Canada are almost seven times more likely to be murdered by an acquaintance than non-indigenous women. In 2020, 889 indigenous women were raped in Bangladesh, a number that is believed to be underreported. It’s believed that the data are underestimated.
The intersecting reality of discrimination against indigenous women means not only are rates of violence against them higher, seeking help and getting justice is difficult. Indigenous women have less access to education, employment and healthcare. In shelters in a province in Canada, for example, indigenous women comprise 70 percent of the women, while the indigenous population is 16 percent, a result of high rates of violence plus added economic and social marginalization.
What can we do to stop this? What can we do to make the world see our situation and work toward change? We, indigenous women’s rights activists across the globe, need this violence to be out into the light, everywhere. We believe the most promising path is through a treaty in the form of an Optional Protocol to CEDAW specific to ending violence against women and girls.
In many nations, data specific to violence against indigenous women is minimal or non-existent, part of our invisibility and racist practices. Data collection can be part of a new instrument’s metrics-based monitoring and reporting system.
Your Excellencies António Guterres, UN General-Secretary; Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General; Dr. Sima Bahous, Executive Director, UN Women; Dr. Natalia Kanem Executive Director, UNFPA; All Presidents/Heads of States and Governments within the United Nations; in short, a treaty would give us a tool to further our work — a document we can use to partner with native and government officials to push them to take actions.
CEDAW is the right home for this treaty. It is an extraordinarily powerful tool for women’s equality, and its 2022 General Recommendation 39 on the rights of indigenous women and girls was an important and necessary step. A new optional protocol to CEDAW specific to violence against women and girls will strengthen CEDAW’s framework and be binding on states, pushing them to action. It will close the geographic gap created by the three regional instruments, which leave nearly 75 percent of women and girls without protection from a legally binding instrument on violence against women and girls.
An Optional Protocol is urgently needed. Broadly speaking, such a mechanism would mandate interventions widely known to lower rates of violence, particularly when enacted together, including legal reform; training for police, judges, healthcare providers and all others who come into contact with survivors; establishment of survivor support systems; and violence prevention education and national campaigns.
We need global leaders like you to become champions of a binding framework to end violence against women and girls.
We know you believe in human rights, in justice and in the rights of all people and all women, including the rights to indigenous women and girls to live free from violence. We know you believe in the interventions a treaty would mandate. We are asking you to see the power a treaty has to change our lives and the power you have to make it happen. We are asking you to save our lives and the lives of our sisters, daughters, and granddaughters, and your sisters, daughters and granddaughters. We are asking you to join us in hope and to call for an Optional Protocol to CEDAW dedicated to ending violence against women and girls to make the world safer for all of us.
Thank you for your consideration and for your leadership.
Dr. Uzodinma Adirieje
CEO
and Main Representative to the United Nations
Afrihealth
Optonet Association (AHOA) - CSOs Global Movement and Think-tank for
Health and Development
(Winner of the SDG 3
– Good Health and Wellbeing Champion Award)
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