IWGIAtube 348d ago

This film dives into the Indigenous women's movement and struggles they face in Kenya and Nepal and was done in collaboration with Samburu Women Trust, Nepal Indigenous Women Federation and Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact. Indigenous women all over the world experience a “broad, multifaceted and complex spectrum of mutually reinforcing human rights abuses” due to their particular position of vulnerability amongst patriarchal power structures (Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, UNGA A/HRC/30/41). Women are disproportionately affected by the systemic poverty that affects Indigenous Peoples, due to their roles as caregivers and managers of resources in their communities. The Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples found that Indigenous women are commonly excluded from both Indigenous decision-making structures and local and national political processes, which leads to a lack of priority for women’s concerns in policymaking. Indigenous women are very often targets of multiple forms of violence, including structural violence that results in their being victimized by the circumstances of everyday life. Indigenous women have begun to organize in associations, networks and alliances to speak up against violence, discrimination and violations of their rights and promote change. Often, traditional Indigenous and women NGOs and Community-Based Organisations do not encompass in their approaches the specific issues faced by and needs of Indigenous women. A number of networks of Indigenous women at national, regional and international levels have been set up providing support to local organisations in the form of capacity building, advocacy or funding. But in comparison to western networks of Indigenous women, the networks in Africa and Asia are still nascent and lack access to a global movement that can amplify their voices at all levels from local to international through adapted funding, knowledge-sharing and collective action opportunities. This film is part of an IWGIA project, supported by Comic Relief, that contributes to building a movement of Indigenous women led by Indigenous women’s organisations that protect and promote their rights in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Nepal and Tanzania. Film directed by Rajneesh Bhandari