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INDIGENOUS PEOPLES: Where are the Missing Women?
By Susanne Link
UNITED NATIONS, May 14 (IPS) - Indigenous women from around the world go missing every day with only little notice and concern shown by the United Nations, governments and media, said a group of their peers Thursday.
Indigenous women are often victims of violence because they are marginalized in every nation, said Kukdookaa Terri Brown, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, a group working to raise public awareness of the disappearances and murders of indigenous women in Canada.
Accompanied by representatives of several indigenous women's associations, she reviewed the situation of disappeared women in various countries, most of who were, without much doubt, murdered, added Terri Brown.
The women met with journalists at U.N. headquarters during this year's meeting of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the only full-time U.N. body devoted to such issues.
The theme of this year's forum is indigenous women.
The women hope to devise a strategy on addressing the disappearances, and present it to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who opened the Permanent Forum session on Monday, saying, "Too often the voices of indigenous women are not heard. Over the next two weeks - and beyond - I hope you will make certain that they are heard."
Terri Brown said indigenous women are typically mistreated wherever they live, so the issue is not isolated to any one area or region.
"Hate, crime and racial violence against (the women) affect all aspects of indigenous society", she said.
Across Canada about 500 aboriginal women have gone missing in the last 20 years, with numbers rising since the 1990s. But official estimates of the exact number differ from indigenous ones, Terri Brown added.
The indigenous women in Canada mostly disappeared either in very poor parts of urban areas, including Vancouver, on the west coast of the province of British Columbia - where the women are often drug addicted or work as prostitutes - or in much smaller communities, often as they walked along isolated highways.
Most of the cases remain unsolved. "This is an undeclared war against the first people in the land", Terri Brown said.
The biggest obstacle to dealing with the issue of missing indigenous women in Asia is that governments do not want to recognise the violence, said Sumshot Khular, president of India-based Community Action and Research for Development.
"The government doesn't want to highlight the issue", she said, "and the police don't help to find the women".
It is even not safe for women to work in fields in many places, for example, because they can be molested, even raped. Many indigenous have also been taken to work in the military. "The military practices had led to increased violations against women in southern Asia," Khular added.
In other cases, "indigenous women are taken to cities to work; they are promised jobs but they end up in prostitution", she said. This problem concerns not only women but also young girls.
Building awareness about the abuse of indigenous women in Asia is difficult because the men who dominate the local media are not interested in the issue and because governments do not want to publish the issue for fear of creating a negative image of their country, according to Khular.
In southern Sudan, indigenous girls as young as seven years of age are targeted for rape, said Susan Oduho, an activist from the African nation.
Rebels and government forces have been fighting a civil war in the region for 10 years, increasing the danger facing girls and women. "The issue is very complex. Apart from the war, there is a lot of destruction," Oduho told journalists.
The conflict also means that no official figures or concrete data on the treatment of indigenous women are available, she said.
Although the international community is now focussed on human rights and humanitarian issues in the country's western Darfur region, "southern Sudan should be more highlighted", Oduho added.
Human rights group Amnesty International will launch a report on the situation of missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada later this year.
According to report author Beverley Jacobs, Canadian police did not easily cooperate with Amnesty's investigation. Nonetheless, she expects the report will create greater awareness about violence against indigenous women globally.
Terri Brown says indigenous people have been holding a Valentine's Day march to remember the disappeared women for 13 years, but "nothing has changed".
She is optimistic, however, after new Prime Minister Paul Martin took office in December 2003 and pledged to make indigenous issues a priority of his Liberal government. "We are in discussions," Terri Brown said.
(END/2004)
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