UN forum examines exploitation of women

UNITED NATIONS -- Forced into prostitution in Asia, exploited in the sweatshops of Latin America or targeted for violence in Canada, women representing indigenous people from five continents this week told the United Nations it was time to pay attention to their needs.

Ending a two-week forum Friday with a special focus on women, participants spoke of prostitution, high mortality, murders, illegal sterilization, as well as tradition in some communities, such as young girls forced to marry old men.

For many of the 1,000 delegates in exquisite traditional dress, this was the first time they had been abroad. Others came from a few miles away, Connecticut and Long Island.

"Once indigenous women are given a higher profile, starting with this forum, we hope the member states of the United Nations will address the concerns of indigenous women more seriously and comprehensively," said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz from the Igorot peoples of the Philippines.

Ole Henrik Magga, chairman of the UN Permanent Forum of Indigenous Issues that was organized three years ago after decades of pressure, said the reporting of abuses by UN organizations would give complaints validity when native peoples faced governments.

"We need mainstreaming of indigenous people in the UN system, particularly women," said Magga, of the Saami people of Norway.

He said agencies such as the World Health Organization could supply services and training and the World Bank could could help women get access to capital.

Others said globalization had made it easier for multinational organizations to confiscate native lands, whether in the Masai plains of Kenya or the plains of India.

The forum had trouble getting established, since most of the indigenous have complaints against UN member governments.

One goal over the past decade has been to draw up a declaration of rights, which still has not been done.

A Canadian native lawyer from Alberta, Wilton Littlechild, reported that some 500 aboriginal women have disappeared or been murdered in Canada over the last 16 years, six of them feared to have been abducted on northern British Columbia's highway 16, called the "Highway of Tears." The police have been accused of having done little to solve the crimes.

Delegates likened the situation to that of Mexico's Ciudad Juarez, on the US border, where some 300 women have been killed over the last 10 years. The United Nations estimates some 370 million indigenous people live in more than 70 countries, frequently in either voluntary or forced isolation.