Indigenous Women are still not on the global agenda at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)

Written on 06 January 2025. Posted in News

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. Every year, representatives of UN Member States, civil society organizations and UN entities gather at a two-week session to take stock of the status of women around the world, discuss the progress and regress of the situation, and agree on necessary next steps.

Although continuously pushing for their rights, Indigenous women still suffer from an acute lack of visibility at the Commission and are not given the space to impactfully exert their leadership.

“We are not yet there,” Rabiatou Ahmadou, Political Participation and Advocacy Coordinator at the International Indigenous Women's Forum (FIMI), said.

Building on the concept notes available online, out of the 265 side-events at CSW68 in 2024^[1], only 14 mention in their concept notes women belonging to Indigenous Peoples or Local Communities. Additionally, whereas the concluding observations of the CSW68^[2] have strong paragraphs on Indigenous women and girls, there is no mention of Indigenous women and girls in the CSW68 Resolution on women, the girl child and HIV and AIDS (E/CN.6/2024/L.5)^[3], although Indigenous women are disproportionately affected by infectious diseases and lack of medical treatment^[4].

As the CSW gets ready for its 69^th sesson being held 10-21 March 2025, the hope is that Indigenous women and their issues will have more visibility.

A lack of commitment from Member States and continued misrepresentation

On the front line of the invisibilization and marginalisation of Indigenous women at the CSW is the lack of explicit recognition from Member States. The national statements issued yearly by Member States is clear proof of this.

“I wish [states] would even mention Indigenous women or acknowledge their existence – it feels like they do not even know that Indigenous women exist in the world and what great contributions to global challenges Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous women in particular can offer, but also recognizing the deep trauma and suffering they face because of the neglect of their existence,” Signe Leth, IWGIA´s Senior Advisor on Women & Land Rights, said.

Out of the 41 national statements available online from CSW68, only three explicitly mention Indigenous women (Brazil, Denmark, Norway), two mention Indigenous Peoples (Canada, Philippines) and two mention women from ethnic minorities (Czech Republic; Uganda). Beyond recognition, Member States furthermore fail at taking concrete action and showing active commitment for and with Indigenous women.

Regrettably, Ahmadou feels that sometimes “other partners, organizers and organizations simply want to include us Indigenous women in their panels or discussions merely to fulfil diversity quotas without genuine engagement or influence”.

Additionally, Indigenous women at the CSW suffer from stereotyped representations that hinder the range and legitimacy of their voices. Whereas the marginalization of Indigenous women is frequently highlighted, their strength and leadership are too often under-recognized and under-promoted.

“Our resilience, knowledge, and leadership capabilities are not equally acknowledged when decisions are being taken or when programs are being developed by the different stakeholders. This perpetuates stereotypes of Indigenous women as victims rather than recognizing them as powerful agents of change,” Ahmadou explains.

This tendency is also found in the official documents of the CSW.

In the CSW68 agreed session outcomes from 25 March 2024^[5], Indigenous women and girls are first and foremost presented as facing “multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and barriers they face” (para. uu). In the paragraph that follows, migrant women are, on the contrary, presented as leaders fostering “inclusive growth and sustainable development” (para. vv).

Photo: Jane Meriwas, Director of the Samburu Women Trust, speaking about women leadership in Merilosho, Kenya. CREDIT: Geneviève Rose / IWGIA

Participation without inclusive spaces

Although the participation of Indigenous women at the CSW is growing, “they are still quite invisible because they are not provided the space in the official program,” Leth explained.

The scope and outcomes of their participation is thus hindered by a lack of permanent and inclusive space.

On the ground, Ahmadou feels that the CSW panels are not inclusive enough.

“Panels are often composed of individuals from more mainstream organizations or those with greater visibility, thereby marginalizing Indigenous voices,” she explained.

When on the panel, the issue of Indigenous women itself is too rarely explicitly mentioned in the concept notes of the event.

Concretely, an overall lack of translation services for Indigenous languages also perpetuates the discrimination of Indigenous women on the CSW stage and limits “their possibilities to participate on equal terms with non-Indigenous women,” Teresa Zapeta, FIMI’s Executive Director, said. “Sincerely, we feel discrimination in every sense.”

For Ahmadou, such limited speaking opportunities is a clear obstacle for Indigenous women in their “hope, efforts and capacity to influence the outcomes of the discussion”.

Recognizing the specific and challenging situation of Indigenous women

This overall lack of inclusiveness is tightly linked to the lack of good understanding of the specific situation of Indigenous women on the global stage. For instance, it is not unusual for Indigenous women at the CSW to “encounter cultural insensitivities from some other participants,” Ahmadou noted.

On the specific situation of Indigenous women, Leth explained that “the intersectionality – or multi-layered discrimination that Indigenous women experience and have to deal with is different from the broader issue of women’s rights.” When talking about the rights of Indigenous women, the issue of collective rights is crucial in understanding their specific challenges and struggles.

“Indigenous women are fighting for their collective rights as Indigenous women rather than the more individualized human rights struggle of other women,” Leth said.

In taking leadership and action, Indigenous women also have to overcome internal and external barriers of several kinds, beginning with facing traditional expectations.

“Balancing traditional roles and responsibilities with leadership aspirations in a predominantly non-Indigenous context is quite an uphill task,” Ahmadou affirmed.

Taking leadership can in some cases clash with communities’ expectations, making it difficult to rely on family and community support.

“The Indigenous male chauvinist prejudice against feminism means that in most cases, it is our own leaders who do not give importance to the violation of the fundamental human rights of Indigenous children, youth and women,” Zapeta explained.

Additionally, Indigenous women further face institutional discrimination that culminates in limited access to funding, logistical support (for travel visas for instance), education and professional development opportunities. Zapeta also emphasized the “risk of threats from [Member] States if speaking up”.

How can the Indigenous women movement respond?

“In the last 30 years, Indigenous women at the global level, articulated with regional organisations, have managed to learn a lot, advance and strengthen ourselves,” Zapeta noted.

To achieve some level of visibility and ensure a presence on the local, national and international levels, Indigenous women over the world have been walking together to exert a collective and global influence in strategic spaces.^[6]

“Indigenous women have worked a lot to craft this political and multilateral space”, Lola García-Alix, IWGIA’s Senior Advisor on Global Governance, said. “The space is there.”

So what can Indigenous women do to own it at the CSW and other international platforms?

For Zapeta, more involvement from the communities is definitely needed.

”We need to keep moving forward and make the actors themselves the protagonists, which requires sustained investment from the communities to provide information and education on rights.”

In this line, highlighting the major achievement that represents General Recommendation 39 (GR39) on the rights of Indigenous women and girls, adopted in 2022 under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Zapeta underlines the importance for GR39 to not only be implemented by Member States but also and above all, “be appropriated by all Indigenous girls and women in the world to fight for its implementation in the domestic space”.

Beyond involvement and participation is the issue of capacity-building.

“If you want an increase, not only [in] visibility, but also [in] results and actions by the Commission, it is an issue of evaluating the strategy, of developing a more coherent and long-term strategy. It demands a lot of preparation and more capacity building targeting Indigenous women,” García-Alix explained, pointing at the need to map already existing building capacity initiatives as a first essential step so as to not “begin from scratch”.

This report, written and researched by Floralie Dupré, was made possible with the participation of Teresa Zapeta, Rabiatou Ahmadou, Signe Leth and Lola García-Alix with whom direct interviews were conducted in June 2024 by email:

• The International Indigenous Women's Forum (FIMI) is a global network that brings together Indigenous women from seven socio-cultural regions. FIMI is focused on advocacy, capacity building, economic empowerment and leadership development.
• Teresa Zapeta is the Executive Director of FIMI. She is a Mayan Indigenous Woman from Guatemala.
• Rabiatou Ahmadou is the Political Participation and Advocacy Coordinator at FIMI. She is a Mbororo Indigenous Woman from Cameroon
• Signe Leth is IWGIA´s Senior Advisor on Women & Land Rights, with a special focus on Asia.
• Lola García-Alix manages IWGIA’s programme on global governance, with a focus on international human rights instruments.

Data was also collected through a corpus of available documents on the UN Women website relating to CSW68. This includes:

• the report, background papers (2) and expert papers (15) from the preparatory Expert Group Meeting (https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw68-2024/preparations/expert-group-meeting);
• the official side events programme (https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw68-2024/side-events);
• the official documents (10) from CSW68 (https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw68-2024/official-documents);
• 41 Member State statements (Angola, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Brazil, Brunel, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Grenada, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kapan, Korea, Kenya, Latvia, New Zealand, Micronesia, Namibia, Naura, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Rwanda, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uganda, Zimbabwe); and
• the CSW68 session outcomes, agreed conclusions and resolutions (https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw68-2024/session-outcomes).

Although aiming to be as comprehensive as possible, this report suffers some limitations. It is regrettable that the Commission does not keep track of all Member State statements. Only 41 Member State statements were eventually available online through various means.

Additionally, if not under the constraint of time, more interviews with Indigenous Women exercising leadership at the CSW would have been conducted, including women from all regional areas.

Overall, this report strongly encourages further research on Indigenous Women leadership and presence in international institutions and fora.

Top photo: Indigenous women dialogue with the European Union during the CSW in New York. CREDIT: IWGIA

^[1] The CSW68 session took place from 11-22 March 2024 at the UN headquarters in New York City under the priority theme: “Accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective”.

^[2] n2408140.pdf (un.org)

^[3] E/CN.6/2024/L.5 (undocs.org)

^[4] “The Indigenous World 2024: UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII)”, The Indigenous World 2024, https://iwgia.org/en/un-permanent-forum-on-indigenous-issues-unpfii/5415-iw-2024-unpfii.html?highlight=WyJoaXYiXQ==

^[5] E/CN.6/2024/L.3 (undocs.org)

^[6] The Indigenous World 2024: Defending the Rights of Indigenous Women - IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs

Tags: Women