Written on 25 July Posted in News. Indigenous Women around the world face disproportional levels of violence and harassment due to past and present colonialisation of their territories, and because they are Indigenous and women. They are often subjected to harassment, violence and even killings by representatives of the State, armed opposition and criminal groups.
And even in their own communities they are not always safe and are exposed to domestic violence and attacks on their physical integrity and autonomy.
But Indigenous women shall not only be portrayed as victims. They are active change agents and important leaders in the struggle for the ri ghts of their peoples. Indigenous Peoples all over the world face systemic discrimination rooted in persistent racism as well as past and present colonialism. Indigenous Peoples forced to live in countries created and ruled by the descendants of settler colonialists from overseas, or in countries created after the colonizers had left and are now ruled by the elites of the dominant society and thus, they experience discrimination, dispossession and disempowerment.
Many Indigenous communities have been forcefully relocated, lands have been taken away, forests have been destroyed, mountains have been mined and valleys have been dammed and flooded. Indigenous children have been taken away to boarding schools, living and dying under terrible and destructive circumstances in the name of assimilation, or are forced into schools where none of their languages are spoken and none of their ancestral knowledge and values are taught and practiced.
And they are forced to live under governments that are not their own, in which they can hardly participate and on which they have no influence.
