United Nations Radio

In addition to the usual challenges women are subjected to, indigenous women have to deal with even more problems associated with their ethnicity or race. UN Radio Nick Baker has the story.

Indigenous Forum

A large female delegation is present at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues being held at United Nations Headquarters in New York City for two weeks in May.

Although the assembled women come from an array of different cultural backgrounds from across continents, a dominant concern among many of them is the continued marginalization and discrimination they feel back in their home countries. Mary Simat, a female member of the Masai tribe in Kenya said that females in her community face a daily struggle.

SIMAT: Right now the problems that we are facing are, for example education, the Masai people do not educate their girls and women, and so we have very few women that have gone to school, and also girls have not even gone to school now. The Masai believe that a woman should only stay at home, to be able to stay home so that she can be married. That is one. We also feel the issue of economic issues because the Masai women do not own any, they do not own any property, they don't have their own land, they don't have their own animals or livestock. So that is another one. And the other one is that the Masai women do not have a voice. As a woman you are not supposed to talk. You are supposed to listen but not to talk."

NARR: Member of the Apache tribe in the USA, Anita Anaya, said that discrimination against Native Americans was still present in the US today.

ANAYA: An indigenous woman might be considered as a second choice in possibly jobs, in possibly leadership, as per a western applicant."

NARR: However, she said that many Native American women were standing up for their rights.

ANAYA: We have been making a difference, we have not sat in the backseat any more. We feel that if the male role has not been played due to whatever reasons, it's up to us now to step up at the battlefield."

NARR: Aboriginal Australian Dot Henry said that many people did not realize just how difficult living conditions were for Aboriginal women, with the life expectancy thought to be up to 17 years behind non-indigenous Australians.

HENRY: There's lots of things, based around family violence, and sort of having input into policy and I guess decisions are being made with people not talking to our women, I'm passionate about our people and I know a lot of other people are, and I guess it's about our people knowing about their basic human rights, and if you don't know what your basic human right are then we're going to continue to struggle."

NARR: However, not all delegations reported a continued struggle among their female indigenous populations. Diana Vinding of the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs said that the female indigenous population in Greenland was enjoying near-equality to their non-indigenous counterparts.

HENRY: Greenlandic women have reached a very high level of educational attainment, they're also working, they're wage earners and you have a number of Inuit Greenlandic women who have been members of Parliament, ministers for their self-rule, and their home rule and self government, so women in Greenland are actually in a much more favourable situation than other Indigenous women."

NARR: Nick Baker for United Nations Radio.

(duration: 3'32")