In a world where one in three women experiences violence, where women do not have an equal say in decisions affecting their lives and where the predominant view on women in many cases is sexist and discriminatory – it is necessary that we all pull our weight to improve the situation. Especially for Indigenous women, who disproportionately face intersectional discrimination and multiple expressions of violence, it is urgent to challenge and end harassment and violence, discriminatory attitudes and stereotyping based on gender, ethnicity and Indigenous identity – trends that persist and are entrenched obstacles to Indigenous women’s equality.

IWGIA is committed to contributing to this struggle and convinced that a lot can be achieved because Indigenous women are powerful changemakers despite the multi-dimensional challenges they face – as they have themselves affirmed: “we have been and continue to protect, transmit, and develop our Indigenous cosmovision, our science and technologies, our arts and culture, and our Indigenous socio-political economic systems, which are in harmony with the natural laws of mother earth. We still retain the ethical and aesthetic values, the knowledge and philosophy, the spirituality, which conserves and nurtures Mother Earth. We are persisting in our struggles for self-determination and for our rights to our territories. This has been shown in our tenacity and capacity to withstand and survive the colonization happening in our lands in the last 500 years” (Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women, 1995).