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Nothing About Us, Without Us Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Demand Action
Vol. 39, Issue 3 • september 2015 US $4.99/CAN $6.99
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Cultural Survival co-founder, Pia Maybury-Lewis, with Xavante families during her first visit to the region of Mato Grosso, Brazil in 1958.
Board of Directors President
Sarah Fuller vice president
Duane Champagne (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) Treasurer
Photo courtesy of Pia Maybury-Lewis.
Steven Heim Clerk
Nicole Friederichs Evelyn Arce (Chibcha) Alison Bernstein Joseph Goko Mutangah Laura Graham Jean Jackson Lesley Kabotie (Crow) Pia Maybury-Lewis Stephen Marks Stella Tamang (Tamang) Che Philip Wilson (Nga-ti Rangi) FOUNDERS David & Pia Maybury-Lewis Cultural Survival Headquarters 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 t 617.441.5400 f 617.441.5417 www.cs.org
F e at u r e s
4 Remembering Pia, the Heart of Cultural Survival
14 Simply, Real Consultation
Cultural Survival Quarterly
Copy Editor: Jenn Goodman Designer: NonprofitDesign.com Contributing Arts Editor: Phoebe Farris Managing Editor: Agnes Portalewska Copyright 2015 by Cultural Survival, Inc. Cultural Survival Quarterly (ISSN 0740-3291) is published quarterly by Cultural Survival, Inc. at PO Box 381569, Cambridge, MA 02238. Periodical postage paid at Boston, MA 02205 and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Cultural Survival, PO Box 381569, Cambridge, MA 02238. Printed on recycled paper in the U.S.A. Please note that the views in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Cultural Survival.
Writers’ Guidelines
View writers’ guidelines at our website (www.cs.org) or send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Cultural Survival, Writer’s Guidelines, PO Box 381569, Cambridge, MA 02238. Cultural Survival recognizes that Indigenous Peoples have long been exploited by photographers and publications. This publication does not pay photographers for images and makes no money from publishing them. We also make a tremendous effort to identify every Indigenous individual in the images that appear here. From time to time, however, such identification is not possible. We apologize to the subjects of those photos and to any reader offended by the omission.
On the cover Photo: © iStockphoto/klazing
ii • www. cs. org
Agnes Portalewska The Indigenous persons with disabilities movement has made great strides in recent years, though much remains to be done.
16 Nothing About Us, Without Us
An Interview with Setareki Macanawai, CEO for the Pacific Disability Forum, on the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Movement.
Boulder Office 2769 Iris Ave., Suite 101 Boulder, CO 80304 Asociación Sobrevivencia Cultural 6ta Avenida 5-27, Local “C” Zona 1, Sumpango, Sacatepéquez, Guatemala
Tara Tidwell Cullen Cultural Survival co-founder Pia Maybury-Lewis spearheaded a movement and touched the lives of thousands.
18 Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Make Their Voices Heard
18 We Want to Change that Stigma
Doreen Demas
19 We Belong to Our Dual Identity
Perty Maguru
20 We Have a Right to Lead
Menase Ntutu
21 We Are Advocating for the Same Issues
Ipul Powesau
22 Funding at the Margins Agnes Portalewska The International Funders For Indigenous Peoples regional meeting in Boston addressed the need for cross-sectional funding of marginalized LGBTQ and disability sectors.
24 Indigenous Rights Radio On the Air in Rural Ghana Danielle DeLuca Ghana is home to a diverse mosaic of community radio stations that broadcast in dozens of tribal languages.
D e pa r t m e n t s 1 Executive Director’s Message 2 In the News 6 Indigenous Arts The Shapeshifting Artist: Ty Defoe 8 Climate Change On Thin Ice in Alaska 10 Rights in Action United States’ Human Rights Record Examined in Second Universal Periodic Review 12 Women the World Must Hear A Call to Action: Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn 26 Bazaar Artist Ujjwal Shrestha 27 Staff Spotlight Merci, Dave 29 Get Involved Realizing Women’s Rights: CEDAW
E xecut iv e Di rector’ S messa ge
Inclusion of Marginalized Groups Within the Indigenous Rights Movement
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ecently, the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) brought together Indigenous persons with disabilities and LGBTQ people to discuss their rights and issues of inclusion. The intersectionality and complexity of identities for each group deserves in-depth discussion and attention. In this issue we focus on Indigenous persons with disabilities and will do more in the future on Indigenous LGBTQ people. The Indigenous rights movement has gained much ground over the last three decades and it is now becoming inclusive of even further discriminated and marginalized groups. Thanks to the generous funding efforts of foundations like the Disability Rights Fund and the Funders for LGBTQ Issues, Indigenous persons with disabilities and Indigenous LGBTQ people are gaining access to international meetings and developing connections across the globe. Their voices are being heard and they are demanding to be seen as rights holders, as can be seen from the slogan, “Nothing about us, without us.” The courageous efforts of people like Setareki Macanawai, Doreen Demas, Perty Maguru, Menase Ntutu, and Ipul Powesau, who refuse to be marginalized, are pushing for global inclusion, participation, access to services, and justice for Indigenous persons with disabilities. As Demas states, Indigenous persons with disabilities need to be supported and seen as “as capable to be successful and to achieve; moving away from the charitable perspective or the medicalized perspective, seeing [them] as sick or needing protection, and often times pitied.” For Indigenous persons with disabilities, access and equitable rights to education,
health, employment, and social services are primary needs and concerns. Our responsibility is to ensure these rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled. Also included in this issue of the CSQ is the work of two-spirit artist Ty Defoe, whose art reflects the intersectionality of identities and is created to break “human divides.” In his words, his art “dispels the myths of a hierarchy as it allows humans to connect to each other and also to the rest of the living world, be it twolegged, four-legged, and even the elementals . . . nature, the wind. It allows us to be not just free thinkers but also feelers. It allows us to drop our masks and be ourselves. With the kind of transparency art facilitates, the world becomes such a better place.” As the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is implemented, we need to commit to the inclusion of the voices and concerns of Indigenous persons with disabilities in all efforts towards the realization of their rights. It is our responsibility to recognize and respond to the most vulnerable of our populations, including women and children. It is most appropriate to conclude this letter with gratitude to Cultural Survival co-founder Pia Maybury-Lewis and express heartfelt blessing to her family. We deeply respect and honor the life of Pia, who promoted cross-cultural understanding believing that such an understanding could go a long way to ending violence against the world’s poorest and most marginalized peoples.
Suzanne Benally, Executive Director (Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa)
Donors like you make our work around the world possible. Thanks so much for being part of Cultural Survival. Cultural Survival Staff Suzanne Benally (Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa), Executive Director Mark Camp, Deputy Executive Director Kaimana Barcarse (Native Hawaiian), Indigenous Rights Radio Senior Producer Ingrid Sub Cuc (Kaqchikel/Q’eqchi), Communications Assistant Jessie Cherofsky, Production Coordinator, Indigenous Rights Radio, Bazaar Program Manager Danielle DeLuca, Program Manager, Advocacy Program and Distribution Coordinator, Indigenous Rights Radio Sofia Flynn, Accounting & Office Manager _ Chelsie U‘ilani Kuali‘i (Native Hawaiian), Indigenous Rights Radio Fellow Maria del Rosario “Rosy” Sul González (Kaqchikel), Indigenous Rights Radio Producer Jamie Malcolm-Brown, Communications & Information Technology Manager Cesar Gomez Moscut (Pocomam), Content Production & Training Coordinator, Community Media Program Agnes Portalewska, Communications Manager Angelica Rao, Executive Coordinator Miranda Vitello, Development Associate Ancelmo Xunic (Kaqchikel), Community Media Program Manager
Sobreviviencia Cultural STAFF (Our Sister Organization in Guatemala) Elsa Chiquita de Pacache (Kaqchikel), Radio Producer, Community Media Program Ingrid Sub Cuc (Kaqchikel/Q’eqchi), Community Media Program Assistant Melvy Lorena Medina Patzán, Fundraising Associate Cesar Gomez Moscut (Pocomam), Program Director, Oscar Armando Xunic Rocal (Kaqchikel), Accountant
INTERNS AND VOLUNTEERS Laura Ann, Jessica Bourbeau, Don Butler, Cory Champer, Pablo Garcia, Alex Glomset, Abigail Graham, Stephanie Guthridge, Emma Kurihara, Polly Lauer, Cass Madden, Akiko Maybury-Lewis, Erika Mayer, Febna Raheem Caven, Zoe Rand, Anuska Sarkar, Shaina Semiatin, Caroline Tegeler, Kristen Williams
There are so many ways to
S tay connected www.cs.org facebook.com/culturalsurvival twitter: @CSORG culturalsurvival@cs.org
Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 1
i n t he new s Costa Rica: Preliminary Measures Issued Protecting Bribri and Teribe People Issued
Delegates from the Indigenous Caucus of the Americas at the Organization of American States withdrew from negotiations last May on the Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a document in process for 17 years.
April
On April 30 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a report calling for the government of Costa Rica to better enforce its Indigenous law to protect native territories. The 25 native territories of Costa Rica all face the occupation of their lands by non-Indigenous people, which has been accompanied by horrific violence against Indigenous Peoples.
Canada: Tsleil-Waututh Nation Denies Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Proposal May
On May 26 the Tsleil-Waututh Nation released a landmark independent assessment of Kinder Morgan’s proposed oil pipelines and tankers project, concluding that the project presents unacceptable risks and would violate Tsleil-Waututh law. The assessment found that the proposed project has the potential to make thousands of people sick and irreversibly contaminate the community’s land.
US: Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Withdraw from Maine Legislature May
On May 26 the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes announced the withdrawal of their delegates from the Maine state legislature, citing concerns about the failure of the state government to recognize their sovereignty. The tribes have expressed that if they ever return, it will be as representatives of sovereign nations and not as non-voting members of the state legislature.
Peru: Dredging of Amazonian Tributaries Halted Pending Indigenous Consultation May
The Superior Court of Loreto in northeastern Peru ruled in favor of Acodecospat, 2 • www. cs. org
Photo courtesy of Vera Narvaez-Lanuza.
an association of Kukama communities in the lower Marañón River valley, in May. The ruling requires that construction plans for the Hydrovía waterway project, aimed at improving the infrastructure connecting the region’s countries, be discontinued until the Indigenous groups in the area are consulted.
US: Indigenous Caucus Withdraws from Negotiations on the Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples May
On May 15 the Indigenous Caucus of the Organization of American States officially withdrew from negotiations in the drafting of the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a document in progress for 17 years that aims to be a comprehensive, regional human rights mechanism to promote, protect, and fulfill the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. The Indigenous caucus withdrew after several states insisted on changes to the document that would erode the rights enshrined within the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, saying that they now consider the document illegitimate.
UN Denounces the Criminalization of Indigenous Community Radio Stations in Guatemala May
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination denounced the criminalization of community radio in Guatemala on May 15, saying that the
detention of Indigenous journalists and the closure of radio stations is a new phenomenon that has arisen alongside hydroelectric projects that ignore the right of Indigenous Peoples to Free, Prior and Informed Consent. The Committee issued a series of recommendations for the government of Guatemala in regards to community radio and larger cultural and racial discrimination issues.
US: Supreme Court to Hear First Tribal Jurisdiction Case in Seven Years June
The US Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of the Choctaw tribe, which sued the manager of a Dollar General store located on Choctaw land in tribal court for $2.5 million in damages for the sexual assault of a minor. On June 15 the US Supreme Court accepted the petition of the Dollar General Corporation, which has refused to pay on the grounds that the case is outside of the tribe’s jurisdiction.
Israel: Supreme Court Denies Land Rights to Bedouin People June
The Supreme Court of Israel has rejected a petition to recognize the ownership of a large plot of land in the Negev desert by a Bedouin family, including the unrecognized village Al Arakib. The June 8 ruling sets a precedent for the State to approve the expropriation of Palestinian lands in the future, as Bedouin land is passed down orally instead of through written titles.
Campaign Updates Belize: Our Life, Our Lands— Respect Maya Land Rights UN Special Rapporteur Speaks Out in Support of Maya Peoples Following Land Rights Violations Victoria TauliCorpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, urged the government of Belize to ensure respect for the rights of the country’s Maya people to non-discrimination and traditional property following the arrest of 12 Maya charged with the unlawful imprisonment of a non-Maya man who allegedly began construction on ancient Maya ruins in the village of Santa Cruz. The Mayas’ right to their traditional lands was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Belize in 2007 and upheld by the Caribbean Court of Justice in 2015.
Guatemala: We Are All Barillas Spanish Company Hidro Santa Cruz Denounced Before World Bank Cecilia Mérida, the partner of an environmental defender who was arrested and falsely imprisoned in Guatemala, testified in Washington, D.C. in April about the damage being caused by the World Bank’s financing of the Cambalam Hydroelectric Dam in the municipality of Barillas, Huehuetenango. Since 2009, Hidro Santa Cruz has been planning a series of dams on the Q’am B’alam River. The Q’anjob’al community, which stands to be the most affected by the dam project, has twice held referenda and voted unequivocally against the dams, but the government of Guatemala granted the concession
Cultural Survival’s advocacy program launches international campaigns in support of grassroots Indigenous movements as they put pressure on governments and corporations to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights of their communities.
to the Spanish company without the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the community. To date, 18 Q’anjob’al men have been arrested and 2 have been killed for speaking out against the dam. Honduras: Tell US and Honduran Officials to Respect Indigenous and Campesino Rights Miguel Facussé Dies; Threat to Indigenous Communities Continues Miguel Facussé, one of the richest men in Hon- duras who made his fortune mainly through palm oil plantations, died at age 90 on June 22. The palm oil mogul’s legacy continues to be felt in the danger and harassment his business operations created, especially in campesino communities. The Garífuna community in Vallecito, Honduras has been entrenched in a violent fight to reclaim their land from Facussé for many years, and even after his death continues to face threats in the form of Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs), which create land concessions for foreign investors that are exempt from national laws.
Panama: Stop Violence Against Ngäbe Protesters Ngäbe Activists Block Barro Blanco Dam The 15-year construction of the Barro Blanco Dam in Panama entered a period of increased tensions as the Ngäbe people issued an ultimatum to the government of Panama on June 14, calling once again for the construction, now 95 percent com-
plete, to desist. The dam will flood a string of Ngäbe and campesino (peasant) communities, destroy ancient petroglyphs, and wipe out many migratory fish. None of the communities gave their Free, Prior and Informed Consent at any point in the process of the construction of the Europeanfunded dam and are now threatening to block the Pan-American highway if the dam is not closed. Cameroon: Stop Palm Oil Plantations from Destroying Africa’s Ancient Rainforests and Local Livelihoods Herakles Operations Abandoned in Mundemba and Toko On May 29, New Yorkbased Herakles Farms announced that it was abandoning all operations in the Mundemba and Toko subdivisions and in the Ndian division of Cameroon following months of national and international scrutiny of plans to plant protected lands, including Indigenous territories and national parks, with palm plantations. The company stated that the projects were being abandoned temporarily and that it intends to return to planting in the protected territories in 2017–2018. Oil palm plantations in the area would bring disastrous pollution resulting from pesticides, fertilizers, and sewage.
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Cultural Survival Quarterly September Cultural Survival Quarterly June 2015 2015 •• 33
Remembering
Pia Photo by Aled Llion.
The Heart of Cultural Survival
Tara Tidwell Cullen
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lsebet Henningson was born in Jutland, Denmark on June 1, 1926, but from birth she was called Pia, Danish for “girl,” because she was the only daughter in a family with three sons. She grew up in Denmark and earned a degree in nutrition before her parents sent her to England at age 21, where she spent her first years working for the woman who had been Winston Churchill’s secretary during World War II. “My English was incredibly faulty,” Pia recollected in a 2005 interview. “And later in life I was so upset that I never really was able to talk to her properly. If I had spoken the language I would have had fantastic conversations.” Pia went on to live in the home of psychiatrist Alice Roughton, a place that was known as a crossroads for future leaders in world politics and medicine, and later took literature courses at Oxford. But it was at a party back at the Roughton home where she met David Maybury-Lewis. During their courtship, Pia continued to learn English and David studied modern languages at Cambridge University. The two were married in 1953 and lived in England while David continued in school. Interested in anthropology and wanting to travel, he was encouraged by a Cambridge professor to pursue fieldwork among the Indigenous tribes in Brazil—relatively unexplored territory for anthropologists at the time. David left for Brazil in 1953, and Pia followed several months later via a 24-day trip on a freight ship from Norway. In São Paolo, the couple studied anthropology and planned their fieldwork among the Xavante, a tribe living remotely in the savannah of Mato Grosso. The stories of the devastating impacts of development on Indigenous populations that the Maybury-Lewises first witnessed in Brazil’s interior are well known among Cultural Survival supporters and have been retold several times by David in his own writing and in the well-received Millennium film series. Before living with the Xavante, they lived with the Xerente, a neighboring tribe who spoke a language close to Xavante. On their first visit to the Xerente, Pia noticed the deplorable racist attitudes Brazilians held towards the country’s Indigenous Peoples. David took a turbo-prop plane and Pia, due to lack of space on the flight, again followed, in a boat. “The [riverboat] captain heard that we were going to see the Xerente. He said at night he just stops in the middle of the river because 4 • www. cs. org
they eat you. There wasn’t a horrible thing they didn’t say about the Indians,” she recalled. After living with the Xerente for 18 months, the MayburyLewises returned to England and Pia gave birth to their first son, Biorn. When it was time for David to return to Brazil to begin his fieldwork with the Xavante, Pia’s family encouraged her to stay behind and take care of the baby, but Pia insisted on following her husband and bringing her child with her. David, Pia, and Biorn spent several months with the Xavante over the next year. Pia worked in the fields with the other women, carrying Biorn on her back in a sling wherever she went. “He was a toddler. A little baby would have been easier,” she quipped. The Maybury-Lewises spent nearly a year with the Xavante during their first trip and then returned to Oxford where David finished his dissertation. They moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1960s, when David got a job in the anthropology department at Harvard University. Their second son, Anthony, was born in Massachusetts a few years later. They intended to be there only for six months, but remained for over 50 years. Even after Pia and David settled in Cambridge, their experiences among the Xavante stayed on their minds and they felt a growing urgency to do more than “study” Indigenous Peoples. The tribe faced increasing encroachment from settlers and suffered because they lacked educational and health services. “In those days [the Brazilian federal Indian agency, called FUNAI] was really sitting on a pile of money. And we were wondering what could be done with that money if the Indians got it themselves. Education would help them to figure out what could be done. We heard other people say, ‘well, we should do something for the people who we studied.’ It was talk, but no doing.” In 1972, David and Pia decided to do. Along with Harvard colleagues Evon Vogt, Jr., and Orlando Patterson, the couple registered Cultural Survival as a nonprofit and started raising money for projects to aid the Xavante. “Our goal was to make life easier for Indigenous people, and to inform other people about Indigenous Peoples’ ways,” Pia said. “I wanted people to really understand Indigenous people. The great majority of peoples don’t understand each other.” Cultural understanding, Pia believed, can go a long way toward ending violence against the world’s poorest and most marginalized peoples. Cultural Survival’s first home was the fifth floor of Harvard’s Peabody Museum, where Pia handled the logistics and
Pia Maybury-Lewis with the Xavante during her first visit to the region of Mato Grosso, Brazil in 1958. Photo courtesy of Pia Maybury-Lewis.
fundraising to get the organization off the ground. “We weren’t really absolutely sure what we were doing in the beginning,” Pia said, but before long Cultural Survival started receiving appeals for aid from Indigenous Peoples and their advocates. Its first campaign helped pay for a Xavante man to go to school to become a nurse, with the intention that he would bring his skills back to his community. When a London-based organization called to say that malaria had broken out in Yanomami territory in Brazil, Cultural Survival raised $3,000 to send medicine. Another group needed boats to allow them to collect nuts, so Cultural Survival raised the money to purchase those. Pia first brought interns into the office in these early days to help write fundraising appeals for the $500 and $1,000 that were needed for these small projects. Internships were not yet a routine part of the college experience, but young people were willing to work for free for an up close education about Indigenous rights and nonprofits. More than 1,600 college and graduate students, as well as a few high school students and some mid-career professionals looking for new life directions, have passed through Cultural Survival’s offices; Pia often referred to interns as the “lifeblood of Cultural Survival.” Pia was also renowned as a party planner and hostess, a reputation she first earned from the balls she organized in Cambridge in the 1970s to raise money for Cultural Survival projects. Although she admitted that the financial success of these parties was questionable, they attracted the Harvard social circles that became some of Cultural Survival’s greatest donors and attracted attention for the festive Cultural Survival Bazaars, the organization’s most successful fundraisers. Cultural Survival supported and helped spread the word about the Indigenous rights movement since its inception, and many of the organization's programs started with Pia. She also started the Cultural Survival Quarterly, which began as a newsletter. David, an anthropologist whose combined academic training, deep compassion, and scholarly ambition were the seeds of Cultural Survival’s mission, was the organization’s figurehead and lent it credibility. But he always credited a great deal of its success thanks to Pia’s work and innovation. “Pia was the person who had an endless stream of ideas,” he said in 2006. Still, Pia often brushed off introductions that labeled her the “co-founder” of Cultural Survival and gave full credit to her husband. Together with rug seller Chris Walter, Pia planned the first Cultural Survival Bazaar in 1975. Walter was the only vendor
and spread out his rugs and kilims on the top floor of a house near the Harvard campus. The Bazaars moved to bigger venues over the years as their reputation drew more vendors; the annual December Bazaar at Harvard Law School’s Pound Hall has become a traditional part of many Cantabrigians’ holiday shopping season. Culture may be a commodity in today’s market, but Pia’s original mission to promote cultural appreciation by showcasing Indigenous crafts endures, at the very least, to provide context for the latest trends. Many will remember the Maybury-Lewis’ Cambridge home as a refuge and crossroads for family, friends, and the occasional Cultural Survival intern. Over the years it welcomed well known thinkers and influential human rights activists. Pia once said that the ideas and initial plans for Doctors Without Borders originated from a conversation that took place among guests in the Maybury-Lewis home. Pia befriended the other faculty families in her neighborhood, though she never fully adopted the traditional role of a Harvard faculty wife. Cynthia Sunderland, a long time close friend and neighbor, recalled that Pia primarily spent her days at Cultural Survival and socialized with other Danish immigrants—a group that came to be nicknamed the “Danish Mafia.” Rather than join the clubs reserved for the wives of faculty members, she was a founding member of a drinking club and a bridge club. “She [was] always interested in people and interested in the young. Which probably kept her young,” Sunderland said. “She [had] enormous generosity. Not only hospitality in the house, but sort of a generosity of the spirit toward people.” At first meeting, Pia’s wit could be jarring, her questions pointed, and her conclusions outrageous. But her interest in other people’s stories was genuine, and she almost always won new acquaintances over long enough for them to realize that she was usually right. It is this trait that allowed her to get away with saying and doing things that most other people only think. David, who died in 2007, once said of his wife, “Pia is outrageous. She says outrageous things. And [when] I think I just can’t take it anymore . . . then she makes me laugh. I think that is the great gift.” Cultural Survival deeply mourns the loss of our beloved Pia, who passed away on August 4, 2015 at age 89 after a long battle with lung cancer. She was surrounded by her loving family and friends at her home in Cambridge, MA. She was one in a million. Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 5
indi geno u s a rts
Multidisciplinary artist Ty Defoe (Giizhiig, Ojibwe, and Oneida) demonstrates his skills.
Drawing from the graphic novel Firebird Tattoo by Ty Defoe and Rachel Kessler.
All photos courtesy of Ty Defoe.
The Shapeshifting Artist
Ty Defoe Febna Reheem Caven
A
n artist who boldly, profoundly, defies definitions: Ty Defoe can be introduced so, with the strictest parsimony for words. To explore the true breadth and depth of this young artist’s life and work so far is to encounter a rich kaleidoscope of identities, talents, and skills, each deserving its own narrative. He is a writer, musician, storyteller, hoop dancer, theater artist, and flautist. He dances the Ojibwe eagle dance, resplendent in the regalia made with the feathers he has collected since childhood, just as effortlessly as he mesmerizes a crowd in New York with a western musical piece he wrote. He won a 6 • www. cs. org
Grammy Award in 2011 for his album “Come to Me Great Mystery.” He travels across the United States, leading educational workshops and raising awareness on themes ranging from American Indian history, ethnomusicology, food security, and climate change—a true shapeshifter of artistic expression. Defoe hails from Wisconsin with roots in the Giizhiig, Ojibwe, and Oneida Nations, and is currently in New York pursuing a fellowship on equity, inclusion, and diversity at the Theatre Communications Group. Defoe’s forays into the art world started with dancing, which he says he learned from his mother as soon as he started walking. Then came hoop dancing. He recalls, “it wasn’t long before one of my Name-keepers gave me a willow hoop and then an iron hoop. I was a rambunctious kid . . . the balance of these two, the willow and the iron, was a way to teach me the balance of things. You weave the hoops in and out through your body. With the willow hoop you have to be gentle or it
will snap and break. The iron hoop, it’s heavy and strong, and if you aren’t careful and whip it too hard, you hurt yourself.” Weaving in and out of as many as 30 hoops, transforming from eagle to butterfly to coyote, a hoop dancer uses hoops as a powerful storytelling device. As Defoe was being given the gifts of arts and perspectives by a remarkable community of family, friends, spiritual mentors, and even strangers who came to visit the reservation, he was diligently piecing them together to form an enquiry and expression of his true self. He remembers his Uncle Joey, who defied conventions and taught him drumming. He remembers his Uncle Jim who “learnt instruments by ear” and passed on that gift of music. Eagle being his father’s clan, Defoe soon learned to shapeshift into an eagle as he danced the Eagle Dance, embodying the platonic wisdom of rising above and seeing contours of reality from a higher perspective. Rising above, bravely evolving, he found an external expression for his true identity of being a Two-Spirit. “The concept of Two-Spirit, where the masculine and the feminine coexist in a person, has always been there among Native people; it’s just that it has been shamed and oppressed,” Defoe explains. “I have been progressively evolving. For me, changing form and name was a process I undertook to make the flow a little bit easier and help others on the same path. Being a Two-Spirit person, it’s not about a gender identity overpowering the other. The soul craves movement around these concepts of masculine and feminine we have created. Right now it’s a time for healing for the Two-Spirited community . . . there is tremendous creative potential and an amazing sense of fearlessness.” Defoe’s own multi-disciplinary artwork exemplifies that bold creative potential, much of which he directs at exploring the structure, functions, and mutability of identities. In one of his recent musical theatre works, “Clouds are Pillows for the Moon,” he collaborated with Tidtaya Sinutoke, a composer from Thailand, to weave a story of two teenage girls—one from Thailand and another from an Ojibwe reservation— who are exploring and contesting their identities in the melting pot that is America. Having walked the liminal world of multiple identities, Defoe feels strongly about being sure of one’s identity before spreading out one’s branches. “In the hoop of life, as you stand next to your friend, uncle, aunt, or even a stranger, you want to be just as vibrant as the other person next to you. To do that you need first know your own roots and identities,” he says. “Roots before Branches” is also the title of a show Defoe put together for the National Museum of the American Indian, which talks about such a process; his work aspires to manifest as well as facilitate that individual expression of uniqueness without cultural appropriation. Through his experience as a Native artist, Defoe has learned the hard way that such creative spaces do not come easily. He says the traditional values of humility and shared leadership he was raised with often put him at odds with the competitive model of contemporary society that requires an artist to self-promote and surreptitiously guard his or her ideas and creations. He notes that the formulas of privilege that exist elsewhere are reflected in the world of art too:
“One of the biggest challenge to art is access. There are notions about what is art, who deserves art and who has access to it. It’s often people who have power and privilege that gets to decide all these.” Still, Defoe remains undaunted, forging new permutations of alliances and artistic expressions to counter such dynamics in the art world. In collaboration with the PA’I Foundation, he recently toured Hawai’i devising and activating community skills in the practice of art exchange. He was a founding member and artistic director of Native Punx, a venture that sought to enhance the diversity within Native and non-Native artist communities. He collaborated with The Civilians, artists in residence at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, to develop a theatrical performance titled “The Way They Lived,” which is based on the iconic piece of Native art, “End of the Trail.” He is also collaborating with Ibex Puppetry, helping develop the show “Heather Henson’s FLIGHT: A Crane Story,” for the cause of crane conservation. Defoe aspires to create dynamic, multi-disciplinary artistic expressions for global social change and is passionate about creating inclusive platforms for people to create and access art. “I think it would be so amazing to do an art piece that goes around the world that elevates people, but also creates systemic change for underrepresented people or oppressed people, whether it be for LGBTQ, Indigenous people, or communities affected by climate change,” he says. “It is interesting, the idea of a cause. But what I want to create is something that activates people globally to activate things within themselves. Logistically that way we can create a ripple effect. Because people are different, that’s got to be done through music, through visual assistance . . . through some kind of dancing and rhythm changing. And then on the role outside, through educational pieces.” To this end Defoe plans to collaborate with digital storytelling, a project that enables the merger of different disciplines within art and help propagates potent ideas of change. Defoe’s vision is literally a “Circle of Art,” a “Hoop of Life” that connects and engages the global community without boundaries. Having wrestled and negotiated with many stereotypes surrounding his identity, he has emerged with an authentic perspective on why a link between seemingly disparate modes, causes, and alliances is not just viable, but also necessary. As he explains, “art levels fields. It dispels the myths of a hierarchy as it allows humans to connect to each other and also to the rest of the living world, be it two-legged, four-legged, and even the elementals . . . nature, the wind. It allows us to be not just free thinkers but also feelers. It allows us to drop our masks and be ourselves. With the kind of transparency art facilitates, the world becomes such a better place.” —Febna Reheem Caven is an independent researcher and writer on communities in contested environments. Learn more about Ty Defoe’s art at: www.tydefoe.com.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 7
c l i mat e ch a n g e Hunting for walrus is a way of life for Alaska Native communities. Photo by Tom Gray
On Thin Ice
Subsistence Walrus Hunting and the Adaptation to a Changing Climate in Alaska
be wasteful. If you waste, you yourself will cause the Creator to cut you off . . . take home enough laska Native communiof what you need, with a limit. This ties along the coast of the animal, your food, is very imporBering, Chukchi, and tant. We want it to live just as we Beaufort Seas have lived strive to live.’” in close connection with the ocean Pacific walrus depend on sea ice for thousands of years. The bounty as a platform for resting, calving, of this rich environment, which and nursing, and this sea ice habitat includes marine mammals, fish, is rapidly deteriorating due to climate birds, and plant life, has sustained change. This has opened the door Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island Yupik, for other impacts to the environIñupiaq, Central Yup’ik, and Aleut ment of the Pacific walrus, such communities since time immemoas increased shipping and resource rial. These Alaska Native communiKatya Wassillie cutting seal blubber. exploration activities in the area. ties are an integral part of the ocean Photo by Tom Gray. Global carbon dioxide emissions ecosystem, maintaining their ties to are resulting in the rapid acidification of the Bering, Chukchi, the ocean through the continuation of the marine subsistence and Beaufort Seas, whose waters are particularly vulnerable lifestyle. This lifestyle represents a reciprocal relationship to ocean acidification due to their cold temperatures. This in with the environment and the animals in which traditions turn has implications for the viability of walrus prey resources, of respect are maintained through sustainable stewardship mainly clams, whose shell formation is impacted by the practices and spiritual expressions of song and dance. It has acidity of the water. always been characterized by balance, which has allowed These cumulative pressures, largely caused by excessive for successful coexistence with the ocean environment. global carbon dioxide emissions, are of great concern to Alaska But this balance is now threatened by climate change, Native subsistence communities that depend on healthy and which is resulting in a rapidly and dramatically changing sustainable marine ecosystems. Climate change impacts are ocean environment. One of the species most impacted by already being felt by the subsistence communities in many these changes is the Pacific walrus, an important subsistence ways. Thinner sea ice makes for more dangerous hunting conresource for many Alaska Native communities. In a 2004 inditions and hunters must now travel farther to access marine terview for a traditional knowledge project, Alexander Akeya, mammals. Changing weather patterns, partially caused by an elder from the community of Savoonga, said, “This walrus decreased sea ice presence, are resulting in more severe has been our food for centuries . . . our food has an overseer. storms that affect both hunting opportunity and the integrity Although I wanted to harvest more, our elders would say, of shorelines through increased erosion. ‘Quit hunting, that is enough. Take care of your food, do not
Katya Wassillie
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“Our traditions say only take what you need, do not waste.” A boat made of walrus skin (left) and walrus meat drying (right). Left: Photo by Gay Sheffield. Right: Photo by Martin Robards.
In an interview for another traditional knowledge project in April 2015, Vince Pikonganna, an elder from the King Island Native community, offered his perspective on the impacts of climate change: “Everything is changing. One thing affects another. Mother Nature can take care of herself, it’s just that we the humans are the culprit of what she’s suffering through. She’s reacting to what we’ve been doing to her for a couple hundred years now—all this pollution, destroying the land, and destroying the oceans. We have been told by our ancestors about the future. We’ve been told that [we] will need to watch out for the four winds. The four winds will be getting stronger in the future and unexpected weather patterns will start to be happening. And now it’s happening, right before our eyes. I was practicing how to tell the weather in our Iñupiaq way 30 years ago. But some 20 years ago, everything got chaotic. This weather got chaotic.” One stark example of climate change impacts on marine subsistence is the walrus harvest disaster that occurred in the communities of Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island in 2013. That year, unusual weather conditions and sea ice patterns prevented hunters from accessing the walrus as they migrated past the island, resulting in a record low harvest and food shortages for the communities. The state of Alaska declared a disaster, which leveraged support for food aid from many organizations, but the question remains as to how the communities will adapt if these conditions continue. Since 2013 harvest numbers for Gambell and Savoonga have not returned to normal levels, and the communities of Diomede and Wales, located in the Bering Straits region, have also declared harvest disasters due to similar ice and weather conditions. Not only does the walrus provide large amounts of nutrition for the communities, but the continued consumption of this subsistence resource is culturally and spiritually important to the people of the communities. Furthermore, raw materials provided by walrus also help meet the material and financial needs of the communities. Alaska Native ivory carvers are renowned for their skill, and the sale of walrus ivory artwork and jewelry are an important source of income in the extremely limited cash economy of rural Alaska. Other material and cultural needs of the communities are also dependent on walrus subsistence, including the making of walrus skin boats for hunting and walrus stomach drums for Native dancing. In a 2004 interview, Leonard Apangalook of Gambell explained how changing weather has impacted his community: “The ice recedes, goes so fast that our walrus season is very short. And of course we get a lot of wind, too. It’s affecting
us now. The animals that we hunt are affected by it and that is how it affects us. I have seen so much change with our climate over the years . . . the enormity of the problem is so big it involves many countries and the whole world.” The ability of Alaska Natives to continue to sustainably subsist on walrus and other marine mammal resources is an inherent Indigenous right, and climate change is threatening this right. The Pacific walrus is currently under review by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for listing under the Endangered Species Act, not because of current population decline, but because of anticipated impacts to the population over the next 100 years caused by climate change and ocean acidification. As a mitigation measure the Service has suggested future restrictions to subsistence walrus hunting, an approach that the Eskimo Walrus Commission takes issue with. The Eskimo Walrus Commission is an Alaska Native co-management entity representing 19 walrus hunting communities from Barrow to the Bristol Bay region, which advocates on behalf of Alaska Native walrus hunters in the management process. Its mission is to protect the Pacific walrus population. The Commission has expressed the view that because subsistence walrus hunting is not the root cause of the issue with the walrus population, solely focusing on hunting restrictions cannot be a viable management solution. The gravest threat to the Pacific walrus population, and thus to the Alaska Native subsistence communities that depend on them, is carbon emissions. In December 2014, the Commission passed a resolution urging the US Fish and Wildlife Service to make clear recommendations to the federal government to significantly reduce US carbon emissions and invest in clean energy. Through this resolution, the Commission identified the fact that the current management approach would not only be ineffective in the long term, but would threaten the continued survival of subsistence communities. As an Indigenous organization, the Eskimo Walrus Commission recognizes that threats to the Pacific walrus cannot be addressed on its own. A truly effective management approach must seek to protect not only the walrus, but the whole ecosystem in which it exists, recognizing that the rights of human subsistence communities that interact with and depend on this ecosystem must be protected also. —Katya Wassillie (Yup’ik/Iñupiaq) is the Eskimo Walrus Commission specialist at Kawerak, Inc., the tribal consortium for the Bering Straits region of Alaska. She is from the communities of Pilot Station and White Mountain, Alaska, and is an active participant in the subsistence lifestyle. Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 9
r i ght s i n a ct io n
United States’ Human Rights Record Examined in Second Universal Periodic Review Joshua Cooper
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he second Universal Periodic Review of the United States on May 21 illuminated Indigenous Peoples’ rights with UN member states, raising many concerns in contemporary society. Rights raised covered the entire field of fundamental freedoms, from the right of self-determination to violence against women to implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Review is a process conducted at the United Nations in Geneva that reviews each member state’s record with regard to its human rights obligations and commitments. Civil society is encouraged to participate in outlining the issues affecting their communities in regards to international human rights standards. Indigenous Peoples participated actively, resulting in significant attention as the world questioned the current conditions facing Indigenous Peoples in the US. Indigenous rights were mentioned by at least a dozen states in the four and a half hour review. During all five phases of the Universal Periodic Review, Indigenous Peoples engaged on community, country, and global civil society levels using the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for the framework to collaborate in country-wide coalitions and also to diplomatically advocate with States. The Review also coincides with the global agenda of implementing the Outcome Document of the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. In the first phase of preparation, Indigenous Peoples drafted stakeholder reports highlighting the major human rights of Indigenous Peoples for each Indigenous nation and specific struggles for self-determination. Indigenous Peoples across the US coordinated together as a working group with the other two dozen working groups in the US Human Rights Network. Indigenous nations conducted trainings to prepare
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five-page stakeholder reports summarizing specific situations on Indigenous homelands from where the Mayflower landed to the final Indigenous kingdom colonized illegally in the Pacific: Hawai’i. A 10-page summary of the state of Indigenous Peoples in the US was also submitted. East Coast Nations met together to review the process and coordinate stakeholder reports. Also, Indigenous nations in the Southeast confronting corporations mining their sacred land prepared stakeholder reports. Throughout the 2014 sum- mer, the meetings provided the basis for the reports to be submitted to the Review. In the second phase of interaction, Indigenous Peoples spoke truth to power to the US government through multiple consultations and innovative diplomacy dialogues with foreign governments at UN Missions in New York and Geneva as well as US embassies in Washington, D.C. Indigenous Peoples participated in multiple side events hosted at the UN Human Rights Council from June 2013 through March 2015 where Indigenous rights were raised via Skype. On top of the side events, the US hosted consultations in Washington, D.C. as well as Indian Country in Oklahoma. A couple of consultations at the US State Department served as listening sessions where civil society would share specific concerns and propose recommendations in national policies and practices. Indigenous Peoples actively engaged, walking in the footsteps of ancestral advocates to demand dignity in Washington based on the treaty relationship established centuries ago. Regarding the Review’s Diplomacy Dialogues, Indigenous Peoples participated in the New York and Washington meetings hosted monthly at universities in both cities. At each event, Indigenous Peoples shared personal stories of colonization and current neocolonialism efforts, including the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations. From the first event at Howard University to the final one at Hunter College, Indigenous Peoples presented agreed upon issues, questions, and recommendations. One new model for Diplomacy Dialogue was
US representative to the UN Human Rights Council, Keith Harper (third from right), meets with the Indigenous Peoples’ Working Group after a Universal Periodic Review consultation in Geneva.
US Ambassador to the UN, Ken Washburn, of the Department of Interior meets with Petuuche Gilbert (Laguna/Acoma) and Chief Gary Harrison (Chickaloon Native Village).
Rebecca Landy of the International Indian Treaty Council and Petuuche Gilbert speak to the US government during the consultation following the consideration.
hosted at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. During a side event, representatives from Taino in the Caribbean and Kanaka Maoli in Oceania addressed common challenges at the UN Development Program headquarters. Prior to the actual Diplomacy Dialogue, representatives were able to speak to over 40 member states by meeting directly with States in attendance at the 14th session of the Permanent Forum. In the third phase of consideration, Indigenous Peoples were highlighted by the US administration. On May 11, the first Indigenous US ambassador to the United Nations, Keith Harper, opened the Review with a statement recognizing the lack of perfection but dedication to change and constant pursuit of justice. Harper cited the recommendations made by States regarding Indigenous Peoples and the subsequent action prior to the adoption of the first report for the US to be the final State to adopt the Declaration. He also cited efforts to eradicate violence against Indigenous women by empowering communities to address challenges. Albania, Bolivia, China, Egypt, Finland, Macedonia, Moldova, Nicaragua, and Pakistan raised various Indigenous rights being denied in the United States of America. From generally encouraging the full implementation of the Declaration by Bolivia and Egypt, to specific proposals relating to violence against Indigenous women by Macedonia and Finland, the recommendations were based on testimonies and specific advocacy sheets of Indigenous Peoples. There was emphasis on Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) regarding consultation specifically when dealing with traditional sacred lands, as recommended by Moldova. China presented similar concerns regarding autonomy with FPIC including compensation for historical injustices. Alaska and Hawai’i, former states on the UN Decolonization List, were mentioned specifically by a couple of states along with Albania and Pakistan raising violations of rights from education to self-determination. Pakistan mentioned the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from the report, citing paragraph 69 related to decolonization of Indigenous Peoples. Harper responded immediately, stating that the “Obama administration has been guided by tribal self-government as the North Star.” He also noted that the US will champion cultural repatriation of sacred objects and implementation of the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples Outcome Document. All photos by Joshua Cooper
Chief Gary Harrison and Roberto Borrero (Taino) raise the issue of Hawai'i, Alaska, and Puerto Rico to the US government.
In the fourth and fifth phases of adoption and implementation, Indigenous Peoples continue to coordinate through a working group to put forward recommendations. In the immediate aftermath of the Review, there was a formal consultation with the US government in the UN Palais des Nations. Chief Gary Harrison of Chickaloon Native Village in Alaska raised the issue of the US falling short of FPIC by not consulting the traditional chiefs. He also cited the 371 treaties ratified with Indigenous nations that deserve to be honored, confirming the recommendation made earlier regarding Alaska and Hawai’i for genuine decolonization. “We are prisoners in our own land. We don’t have any redress for these grievances,” he said. Petuuche Gilbert of the Laguna Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment stated simply, “all of America was once Aboriginal land.” Gilbert continued to point out the federal lands claims that allow for mining on Indigenous sacred homelands. Throughout the adoption phase, there have been followup trainings to gain input from Indigenous Peoples on the importance of the recommendations provided by member states. The spirit of resistance continued in the Town Hall meeting on July 20 with many people participating directly in Washington with opportunity for people across the country to call in. Working groups will be the main mechanism to implement recommendations leading up to the third cycle; the current working group is Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Indigenous Peoples, and the Environment. Many people stated during the session that Indigenous Peoples must have their own working group. Indigenous Peoples are mobilizing for the September session of the UN Human Rights Council for the official adoption of the US Universal Periodic Review. They aim to secure seats out of the 10 available to speak for the 2 minutes at the adoption on September 25. The final phase of implementation is significant. The major achievement of the first cycle was the US changing position and becoming the final step to reverse its stance on the Declaration. Now it is imperative in the second cycle that Indigenous Peoples are demanding specific steps to realize the rights enshrined in the Declaration. —Joshua Cooper is a professor at the University of Hawai’i, West Oahu, Kapolei and director of the Hawai’i Institute for Human Rights. Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 11
women th e wo r ld m u st hear
A Call to Action Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn
Ma–ori activist Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn making a passionate intervention at the 14th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Photo by Danielle DeLuca.
Erika Mayer
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āori activist Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn is no stranger to the international Indigenous rights movement. She is often heard and photographed making moving and passionate interventions, calling on Pacific countries to respect Indigenous rights. Murupaenga-Ikenn hails from the iwi Māori of Te Rarawa and Ngāti Kuri in Aotearoa (New Zealand). She is an executive member of Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa, the governing authority for her Te Rarawa peoples, and a member of the Ahipara Komiti Takutaimoana, a committee that manages the customary fisheries and coastal environment interests of traditional family groupings of her village of Ahipara. She was also an iwi negotiator for the Ngāti Kuri Historical Land Claims Deed of Settlement with the Crown. This extremely important settlement returned to Ngāti Kuri thousands of hectares of traditional lands and cultural sites and other redress for Crown violations of Ngāti Kuri’s rights under Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the English version is the Treaty of Waitangi) signed with the Crown in 1840. “I’m often thinking about the juncture between this political world and campaigning back home, about advice on working for the rights of our peoples,” she said in a radio interview with Cultural Survival at the 14th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. In a struggle against what she refers to as “juggernauts of corporates,” it is important to connect with networks of people, including NGOs and faith-based groups. 12 • www. cs. org
To understand how Indigenous Peoples could win against the powerful, wealthy forces that threaten their ways of life, Murupaenga-Ikenn referenced the book David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. “It talks about the underdog going up against the big dude, and for us to critically analyze the Achilles heels and the weaknesses in those big powers,” she said. “When you look at them, they do have weaknesses. We just got to figure out what they are and use all the potential we have. And we have so many strengths. We have to galvanize those strengths, and one of those strengths [is] numbers, of course. We are the citizens of our countries, and citizens [need] to stand up whether you’re Indigenous or otherwise.” The business sector, Murupaenga-Ikenn said, is another potential source of support—and crucial funding—for Indigenous Peoples. Socially minded businesses as well as philanthropists from wealthy families can make powerful contributions to social and environmental causes. “There are people out there. Go actively looking for them,” she urged. When asked about her thoughts on consumerism, consumption of oil, and individual responsibility to solve environmental problems, she responded, “We as Indigenous Peoples, actually all humans, should take responsibility for being stewards of a kind.” But, she continued, “We, Indigenous Peoples are not just stewards—we are in a family that has connections with Mother Earth and Father Sky. And so we are part of the bigger family. We are in it. And we are part of nature.” This connectedness with the natural world makes environmental issues, and the harmful risks of oil in particular, a “life and death situation.” Murupaenga-Ikenn did not mince words about modern value systems that ignore the environment, calling them consumerist, competitive, and destructive. If it’s true that money can’t buy happiness, gross domestic product may not be an effective way to measure a country’s progress, and indeed, Murupaenga-Ikenn believes that this system is deeply flawed. “[GDP] only values those things that consumers can put a dollar sign on,” she said. “You know, the marketplace, if you look at it, can’t value things like love. Even your health, well being, even your community’s sense of security and harmony, and our environmental well being—all those things Indigenous Peoples value—the GDP system [as] a measuring stick cannot.” Instead, Murupaenga-Ikenn argues that countries must shift to what she called a “true well-being index,” where a healthy environment is one key factor. “When the environment is degraded anywhere in the world, the Indigenous Peoples are also suffering,” she said. This shift to a more environmentally conscious value system should take place not only in national policies, but also at the local level: “Communities need to have their own value systems . . . families need to have their own value system. It all comes back to the individuals at the end of the day. What are our values?”
Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn making an intervention at the Interactive Hearing for the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. Photo by Shane Brown, Global Coordinating Group Media Team.
To effect change at the individual level, there is no better place to begin than in schools. Children, said Ms. MurupaengaIkenn, must “understand the importance of human rights and treating their fellow humans in the environment with dignity and respect,” and school curriculums must include these subjects. “When that platform is solid, you’ll see a whole lot of transformation happening,” she said. “But it’s just not happening in schools, unfortunately. So I encourage people to go and champion that transformation at a school with all young people.” One of the most important issues Murupaenga-Ikenn called attention to at the Permanent Forum was deep sea oil drilling. She pointed out that such drilling could pose a threat to marine life as well as the many Indigenous people who depend on that marine life for food. For Murupaenga-Ikenn’s peoples, the coastline is a spiritual pathway for those who have passed away, making pollution from deep sea oil drilling an “incomprehensible” spiritual threat. Oil drilling is also contributing to climate change—an issue that has been a “big ticket item” at the United Nations. “We know fossil fuels and carbon-based fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, and all that sort of thing [are] directly related to oil production . . . don’t give any permits for exploration, for crying out loud. And at the same time, really ramp up the renewable energy production infrastructure and ensure the legislative policy regimes back home. Help the average person to use renewable energy,” she implored. Murupaenga-Ikenn also focused on the importance of the Pacific Ocean, naming the problems of sinking States due to rising sea levels, depleted fisheries and food sources, and the nuclear disaster at Fukushima and the immense dangers nuclear energy poses to oceans. Radiation from Fukushima,
she said, has a flow-on effect, and the harms it causes to the northern Pacific will eventually affect the southern Pacific as well. “Does anyone have an exit strategy if [we] decide we want to get out of nuclear?” asked Murupaenga-Ikenn. “No! Nobody had one. They didn’t think about if there was an earthquake, like in Fukushima. What happens if the nuclear power plant is broken and all this radiation gets out? Do we have a mop-up plan? Is there an international organization that’s dedicated to going in there and fixing it up and locking it down? No. Nobody thought about that.” When disasters strike, Indigenous Peoples are often the most affected. For geographic and economic reasons, she explained, Indigenous Peoples simply “don’t have the capacity to just uproot and go and relocate to some other place.” Among Murupaenga-Ikenn’s successes at the United Nations was helping to achieve a more internal focus among Indigenous delegates. In past years she has focused on communicating with the UN and with government officials, but this year, she said, “We’ve taken conscious, intentional steps towards creating a regional mechanism for the Pacific.” Murupaenga-Ikenn also supported a proposed funding group for Indigenous Peoples inspired by an effective coordinating committee at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. “We need a strategy and it can’t just be about a strategy inside the UN, because we have been banging on their door for so long and they keep pushing us back. We will continue with that, but we need our own Indigenous strategy,” she said. Such a strategy would indubitably involve Indigenous people writing history for themselves: “Let’s talk about strengthening ourselves and our self-determination, strengthening our sovereignty. Let’s use that language.” Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 13
Simply, Real Consultation Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Demand Action Agnes Portalewska (CS STAFF) It is estimated that over 1 billion people, about 15 percent of the world’s population, have disabilities. No global data exists regarding Indigenous persons with disabilities, however, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues estimates that the number of Indigenous persons with disabilities could be as high as 54 million. Statistics show that Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately likely to experience disability in comparison to the general population, and are likely to face discrimination based on their Indigeneity and disability. Both the international Indigenous rights and the international disability rights movements have achieved great advances in recent years. In 2007, the General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In 2006, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into force in 2008. Both movements have been active on the rights of subgroups within their constituencies, and the Declaration and the Convention each include rights for Indigenous persons with disabilities, but historically these rights have not been adequately addressed by either movement. The need for greater attention and promotion of the voices of Indigenous persons with disabilities was the focus of Inter14 • www. cs. org
The founders of the Disability Caucus at the UNPFII in 2012 (L-R): Felipe Flores (Peru, second from left) with his personal assistant; Kamala Chakma (Bangladesh); Olga Montúfar (Mexico); Savina Nongebatu (Solomon Islands); Setareki Macanawai (Fiji); and Ipul Powesau (Papua New Guinea). Photo courtesy of the Disability Rights Fund.
sectionality of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in AsiaPacific, a side event at the 14th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on April 27. The event was co-sponsored by the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network and the International Disability Alliance. The international Indigenous Peoples with disabilities movement has gained much visibility over the past three years, due in large part to global organizing efforts led by the US-based Disability Rights Fund (DRF) and the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund (DRAF). “We brought Indigenous leaders with disabilities to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2012 and that’s here the seeds for this network began, when they started wanting to establish a global network to get more presence of disability rights issues at the Forum,” said Diana Samarasan, founding executive director of DRF and DRAF. Aside from establishing the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network and a Disability Caucus at the Permanent Forum, a major achievement was the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities in the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples Outcome Document. Said Samarasan, “We hope to see people looking at Indigenous Peoples with disabilities with more of a rights perspective, moving away from a charity approach. We as a funder really recognize the
importance of funding cross-movement work, like the work of the Global Network, because we all have multiple identities. Indigenous Peoples are also women, are also feminists, they are also members of the LGBTQ community, and they’re also people with disabilities.” “This network achieved a lot at the global level,” com- mented Vladimir Cuk, executive director of the International Disability Alliance. “It is a very young network, but what they have achieved is really disproportionate to how long they have existed.” Cuk credited the Network with being a bridge between the disability community, which is increasingly referenced in Indigenous rights rhetoric, and Indigenous Peoples, who are referenced in the disability movement, stating that “this is particularly important in [regards to the] post-2015 development agenda and in implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Peoples with Disabilities. [We need to] hold accountable and support governments in really implementing post-2015. And for us, the people with disabilities, we will continue to remind [them] of the relevance of the Convention, so that nobody will forget about the government’s responsibilities.” The Permanent Forum has welcomed the active participation of the Disability Caucus. As Joan Carling, an expert member of the Forum from the Philippines, explained, “The whole UN Declaration also applies to Indigenous Peoples with disabilities. The issue of our collective rights is also an issue of persons with disabilities. The issue of our full and effective participation includes Indigenous Peoples with disabilities, as well as women, youth, and the elderly. We need to . . . make sure that the Indigenous movement is inclusive of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities as well as being mindful to the particular circumstances and needs of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities.” In terms of achieving such inclusion, Carling suggested that the UN assist the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network and Disability Caucus in promoting the principles of non-discrimination and equality. “We hope that the Caucus will provide more information on the situation of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities, and more importantly identify areas of collaboration with the organizations of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities. Inform us if you have any activities or events that you think it is important for the Permanent Forum to also make its contribution,” she said. Carling spoke of other possibilities for collaboration, such as participation of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities in the sessions of the Permanent Forum; organizing a special session on Indigenous Peoples with disabilities; preparation of a special report on Indigenous Peoples with disabilities in collaboration with the Forum; raising the issues of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities with UN agencies; and appealing to the UN Voluntary Fund to ensure that it funds Indigenous Peoples with disabilities in every cycle of funding. “There should be at least one or two persons with disabilities that can participate in this Forum, as well as in other sessions where there is funding available for Indigenous Peoples,” she said. Perty Maguru of the Nepal Indigenous Civil Association spoke on behalf of the Disability Caucus, focusing especially the burden of sexual discrimination. “In the context of Nepal, Indigenous persons with disabilities face multiple discrimination and intersectional discrimination. If we see the context of South Asia, the status of women is more vulnerable. They are
deprived of services, they are ignored and limited within their home. They are excluded from the Indigenous disability and national organizations, and they are silenced. We find that more that 50 percent of Indigenous persons [have disabilities]. But, the services for Indigenous persons with disability are only 5 percent. [Neither] the State nor the National Federation of Disabled People has any kind of policies and provisions to incorporate the issues of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities. They have a 5-year strategy for 2015–2020. Even though Indigenous Persons with disabilities are rights holders, we are not being incorporated in this 5-year plan. Most Indigenous persons in Nepal and Asia are not aware of the organization. Indigenous persons with disabilities in larger populations are compelled to remain in silence and segregated because they lack education, they lack understanding in issues, and in services. The first thing we want is participation, documentation, and we want to be stakeholders,” Maguru said. Ipul Powesau, co-chair of the Papua New Guinea Assembly of Disabled Persons, focused on the issues of women and girls and on access to justice and services, particularly education, in Pacific Island nations. “In Papua New Guinea, with a population of almost 8 million people, women are trying to have their issues heard at the national level. When it comes to access to justice, a lot of women and girls with disabilities are raped. They are violently abused by their family members, and the justice they lack is compensation. This is the issue—that our voices are not heard. We don’t have the services that help us to have our voices heard. There are no interpreters, and even the justice system does not have people that are trained to have women with disabilities’ voices heard.” Some of the recommendations for improving the inclusion of Indigenous persons with disabilities included mainstreaming the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; bringing Indigenous groups to disability events; and greater involvement on national and international levels. Samarasan spoke of the Convention as an essential advocacy tool and as opportunity for Indigenous Peoples because it is a legally binding treaty. She gave an example of an Indigenous woman from Mexico with a disability who used the Convention to argue for the establishment of a Disability Rights Commission in the state of Hidalgo: “She made sure the Indigenous voice was a part of this commission. It could be used to advocate for the rights of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities.” Panelists also urged different sectors to work together to build bridges. “We need to bring a human rights approach to the issues, leaving no one behind,” said Maguru.
Olga Montúfar from Mexico speaking at the UNPFII in 2012. Photo courtesy of the Disability Rights Fund.
Read the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities here: goo.gl/9eXaW8. Follow the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network at: www.facebook.com/IPWDGN.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 15
Nothing About Us, Without Us
Setareki Macanawai on the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Movement Setareki S. Macanawai (Indigenous Fijian) is currently the CEO for the Pacific Disability Forum based in Suva, Fiji. Prior to the Forum, he served as the executive director of the Fiji National Council for Disabled Persons and as principal of the Fiji School for the Blind. Macanawai is a leading disability advocate in Asia and the Pacific region and has served on the committees of many international and regional organizations concerned with disability, including as chairperson of the steering committee of the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network and as founding member of the Disability Inclusive Development Reference Group of the Australian Aid Programme. In the latter role, he provided guidance on disabilityinclusive development to help shape the implementation of Australia’s Development for All strategy to ensure that the aid program fulfills Australia’s obligations under international law. Macanawai is blind and spoke with Cultural Survival’s Kaimana Barcarse at the 14th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in April 2015 about the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network. Kaimana Barcase: What was your main purpose for being here? Setareki Macanawai: For us, Indigenous persons with
disabilities, our main message is what we have been championing: the intersectionality of Indigenous people on one hand, and persons with disabilities on the other hand. When we talk about Indigenous persons with disabilities, sometimes we fall in the middle as part of the intersection. Then the issue is we should be recognized within that intersectionality, we should be allowed to participate fully and effectively as Indigenous persons with disabilities, and also to continue to advocate for inclusion in matters that concern Indigenous Peoples and persons with disabilities. KB: Can you give us some examples as to some of the obstacles that you and your team have experienced? SM: Yes, we have a network, Indigenous persons with dis-
abilities from Africa, in Kenya, from Fiji, from Papua New Guinea, from Canada, from Mexico, Bangladesh, also from Nepal, and even as far away as Greenland, and also some other countries in Latin America. One of our struggles, we are a young network. We [are] fairly new in terms of us as an organized group; that [was] made possible when the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund funded participation at the 2012 Permanent Forum. So one of the issues is participation; participation can be costly. And as Indigenous persons with disabilities, sometimes our participation costs, we cannot afford. Within the participation is the issue of accessibility. We have a friend, Manase Ntutu, from Kenya. He was not able 16 • www. cs. org
Setareki Macanawai. Photo courtesy of Broddi Sigurdarson/UNPFII.
to attend our meetings in the past two years largely because of that—having to travel from the rural area, the inaccessible terrain, to the closest airport. And because of the inaccessibility of the terrain, the unavailability of accessible transport, he couldn’t make it. He missed the flight. And the issues of participation in schools, within our own community; the general trend that children with disabilities, particularly in developing countries, are taken off to special education institutions away from their homes, and having to learn away from the comfort of their own home, own family, their own community. These are a few of the challenges that we are facing. And the big one about our own identity as Indigenous people and as persons with disabilities, and how we can get the best out of these two worlds, so to speak, so that we are included in both. KB: What are some examples of how it differs to be Indigenous people with disabilities? What are some of the extra challenges? SM: Yes, in my own experience, our community, we are com-
munal people as Indigenous people. And as communal people living in communities, we take care of our own, we look after what we often refer to as the unfortunate or the less fortunate or the vulnerable groups—which include us, persons with disabilities—or the widows or the orphans that we’ve been hearing at this meeting. In the social fabric of our community, we are caring and we are supportive. So in that regard, persons with disabilities, Indigenous persons with disabilities, we [are] taken care of. When you challenge that—when you turn that
upside down in terms of empowerment, in terms of independence, in terms of voice and participation, when we as Indigenous persons with disabilities are able to have our own voice, our own say, in a place of consonance, as opposed to Indigenous people or the other sector, persons with disabilities speaking on our own behalf, our issues [are] not clearly articulated the way we want to. So for us it’s finding the right probable equilibrium between the two worlds, as I referred to earlier, and how best we can remain Indigenous Peoples— Indigenous people with disabilities, and persons with disabilities with our Indigenous origin. KB: What are some of the successes that you’ve had so far in your fight for this access? SM: We, as a network, we are fairly young. We only estab-
lished ourselves [in] 2013, so really, two years ago. Within that time we have formed ourselves, formed a group. As I said, we are currently funded by the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund supported by the International Disability Alliance. What we are able to do is to ensure that we are included and participating [in] the UN Permanent Forum. This is the third UN Permanent Forum we have attended. We already had a study about our issues by the session [of] the Permanent Forum that was presented in 2013. We appeared quite visibly in the Outcome Document of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples held last year, and throughout the UN Permanent Forum we are now an established caucus—just like the Women’s Caucus, the Youth Caucus, we now have a Disability Caucus. And we are increasing our reach in our network to other countries that have Indigenous persons with disabilities groups to be part of the movement.
KB: Where do you see yourself and your organization, and the caucus, in the next five to ten years? SM: What I’d like to see is that this work is translated down
to the regional level; we would like to see a Disability Caucus actively engaging at the regional level. And then down to the next level, down to the national level. Now we can be as a group [to] claim that space and participation. All that will need work; how we can identify, organize ourselves, and support it to participate. So for us, [it] is the strengthening of this network, the caucus at global level. But for the next five to ten years our work is really in our communities, in our countries, and then having a mechanism at the regional level where we can now share [how] cultures may be similar so we can share at the regional level and then have even a stronger way, a sort of platform, to lobby our issues at the global level.
KB: What words of advice would you give to others who would offer up assistance to your cause? SM: Our slogan that we are using quite a lot is part of the
disability movement’s logo: “Nothing About Us, Without Us.” Or in this case, “nothing about Indigenous persons with disabilities without Indigenous persons with disabilities.” Any support given to us will best suit our needs when we are consulted. So please, talk to us. Our issues are enormous, but they are not insurmountable. Together, we can make a difference. Thank you.
Below: Maria Soledad Cisternas Reyes, member of the UN Expert Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, at the 2013 UNPFII. Photo courtesy of the Disability Rights Fund.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 17
We Want to Change that Stigma Doreen Demas (Dakota) from Canada is a member of the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network and the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Caucus. The following is an excerpt from an Indigenous Rights Radio program interview at the 14th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Doreen Demas from Canada speaking at the UNPFII in 2013. Photo courtesy of Broddi Sigurdarson/ UNPFII.
Our focus at the UNPFII has been twofold: one, to get into the Permanent Forum, which I believe we have been successful in doing just from having the formation of the caucus and our network. And [two], the numerous interventions we have been able to make on the floor. The message I believe that we’ve been putting out there is around inclusion and participation, and this year I have tried to more specifically define what we mean by inclusion and participation. People see us here participating, they see us in the meeting rooms, they see us on the floor making interventions. But what we want is not only [them] seeing us as being there, but also seeing us as capable to be successful and to achieve; moving away from the charitable perspective or the medicalized perspective, seeing us as sick or needing protection, and often times pitied. We want to change that stigma. We want to remove those barriers that keep people thinking of us as incapable. Instead we want people to see us as Indigenous Peoples first, and then as Indigenous Peoples that have disabilities. But that doesn’t preclude us from fully participating in the Permanent Forum and other UN processes. I don’t consider myself an Indigenous person with special abilities or disabilities. I actually dislike that word, “special,” because somehow to me it connotes or implies it’s something outside the ordinary and I want people to stop thinking of us in that way. As a person with a disability, my people, the Dakota People, and other nations within Canada, I think have fallen under all the impacts of colonization. It’s something that I’ve been talking with other people about, culturally looking at the beliefs and traditions and values that our people have held about people that were maybe a little bit different, people with disabilities, even people that were too spirited, that kind of thing, and how they were viewed. And so far, what I have seen tells me that we were seen possibly as being different, but at the same time we had a role within the community, we had a place. Some people believe that Indigenous Peoples with disabilities are gifted, that they have some kind of spiritual ability, that kind of thing. My personal view is that I don’t think most of us have a gift, or are special, not any more than what you say you might have. If you are a spiritual
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person and you believe that the creator can give you a gift, then obviously I think that can go to anybody. What I think is important is that as an Indigenous person with a disability, that lived experience that I’ve had because of having a disability has helped shape who I am as a person. And if I have any gift or if I have anything that perhaps distinguishes me for who I am, it is the passion that I have for working to change the environment, to change the lives of people with disabilities, for myself and anybody else. As Indigenous Peoples with disabilities, we have rights. We have rights like anybody else. We have the right to expect, to be treated just like anybody else. We have the right to dream and to aspire to do things like be successful, whether it’s in education or it’s in some kind of a job or career; to raise a family, if we want to get married. We should have those same expectations as anybody else. Just because you have a disability, whatever that may be, whether it’s physical, sensory, intellectual, or whatever, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a right to live like anybody else. And I think that it is important to empower people with disabilities because once people are informed, [once] you give people information, they can begin to stand up for themselves, they can speak out for themselves. That’s how you make changes. That’s what I would say to people that aren’t here. What I would say to government and other policymakers, those people that have some ability to change, what I would ask them to do or what I would remind them is that again, we as people with disabilities, we have fundamental human rights that give us protection through things like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and other international, national, or local instruments. In Canada that would be the human rights treaties, the Constitution, that are there to protect everybody, including people with disabilities. I think government has a responsibility to try and view us as people with disabilities, as Indigenous persons with disabilities, view us from a rights perspective, not a charitable perspective, not a medical perspective, like we don’t need to be fixed. What we need is for the systems to change, we need people to adopt things like the principle of universal design, universal access, which means that when they create something or are fixing something, whether it’s a physical building or an environment, that they fix it in such a way that it benefits not only a person with a disability, but everybody, so it’s not something special; it’s something that will benefit society as a whole. And I remind people also that a disability—maybe it’s not the most trendiest or sexiest issue—but disability knows no boundaries. Not to scare people, but disability can happen to anybody. That should hopefully urge people to pay attention. Because one day if it happens to you, or someone else, you’re going to need the environment to be user-friendly to you as a person with disabilities. So that would be my caution, what I would ask people to think seriously about: look at us as people that have rights. Don’t pity us, don’t feel sorry for us, but help us and make things so they are supportive. Help us to be independent.
We Belong to Our Dual Kind of Identity Perty Maguru from the Nepal Indigenous Civil Association is a member of the Disability Caucus and the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network and first attended the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in April 2015. Different people come over here and they see the kind of experience they have been facing in their day to day life relating with the Indigenous people. When we are more concerned about Indigenous persons with disabilities, we do have kind of [our] own different, unique experience that we have been facing in our lives. When we come to these kinds of meetings we get seated with the people the first thing; the second thing we have consultations; and the third thing we have documentation. And [following] these documentations, hearings, and consultations, our issues and our advocacy move ahead to ensure and protect our rights. We belong to our dual kind of identity: one from a disability, the other being Indigenous people. So when we talk about both of these kinds of identity, we have a kind of cross-cutting issue as well as kind of intersection of these issues. What I would personally request or personally expect from concerned stakeholders is a kind of need to be addressed, since the idea of diversity in the development process has been addressed in other parts of the world. So in regard to the diversity of disability, Indigenous also need to be addressed so that the voiceless voice will come ahead [to a] kind of integration and mainstreaming in the development process. Since we have been kind of rejected, we have not been involved in the Indigenous discourse or even the disability discourse. We have been facing both kinds of discrimination directly by State policy and directly with so many forms of discrimination that have been happening in the private sphere of life. [So] we thought that incorporating the issues of Indigenous persons with disabilities would be a good platform to bring out the voice of the voiceless.
International Laws Protecting the Rights of People with Disabilities All international human rights instruments protect the human rights of persons with disabilities, as they apply to all persons. This principle of universality is reinforced by the principles of equality and non-discrimination, which are included in human rights instruments. The core United Nations human rights human rights conventions are: • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women • Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment • Convention on the Rights of the Child • International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families • International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006) Some international and regional human rights conventions protect the rights of persons with disabilities specifically, or have provisions concerning persons with disabilities. These include: • Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities • ILO Convention concerning Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) • Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Persons With Disabilities • Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 23) • African Charter of Human and People’s Rights (Article 18(4)) • the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (Article 13) • European Social Charter (Article 15) • Protocol of San Salvador (Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) (Article 6 & 9) • UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Article 21(2) and 22(1))
Kamala Chakma from Bangladesh speaking at UNPFII side event devoted to Indigenous persons with disabilities in 2013. Photo courtesy of Broddi Sigurdarson/UNPFII.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 19
We Have a Right to Lead Menase Ntutu (Maasai) from Kenya is a member of the Disability Caucus and the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network. I am here representing the Indigenous community living with disability, and also I’ve been invited because I am a member of the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network. I am sponsored by International Disability Alliance (IDA). I share experience with many people coming from different parts of the world, so it was a good interaction for me to meet different kinds of people living with disability. What I learned here is to share experience; there’s different people living as you travel to each and every country, there are so many things different. But in Africa, people living with disability are suffering through discrimination. Especially in my community, where you have disability, they see [you] maybe [as the cost] of an institute, limited resources, access to education, health, and also walking. We are suffering the same common things with other disabled people around the world. We are suffering with poverty, and also policies of the governments are different in Africa. In Kenya, only recently (in 2010) we got a new constitution. And the disabled people, especially Indigenous, they don’t
World Conference on Indigenous Peoples Outcome Document (September 23, 2014) We, the Heads of State and Government, ministers and representatives of Member States . . . We commit ourselves to promoting and protecting the rights of Indigenous persons with disabilities and to continuing to improve their social and economic conditions, including by developing targeted measures for the aforementioned action plans, strategies or measures, in collaboration with Indigenous persons with disabilities. We also commit ourselves to ensuring that national legislative, policy and institutional structures relating to indigenous peoples are inclusive of Indigenous persons with disabilities and contribute to the advancement of their rights (paragraph 9). We commit ourselves to working with Indigenous Peoples to disaggregate data, as appropriate, or conduct surveys and to utilizing holistic indicators of Indigenous Peoples’ well-being to address the situation and needs of Indigenous Peoples and individuals, in particular older persons, women, youth, children and persons with disabilities (paragraph 10).
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Menase Ntutu.
get this information when the policies are passed in the government, we don’t get this information early because of networking. Nobody is taking care of the disabled. They live with their family. And here I can see, according to [what I have shared] with other members, this support comes from where we share donors and people suffer. Nobody donates to us; we expect to get donors from other countries. This is what we see, and this is why many of us are not able to do anything. So to come to us at a forum, it is historic from my country. And I am the first person to be here representing—as you can see I’m not sponsored by Kenya, I am sponsored by IDA and Indigenous Global Network. I have big information to take back to Africa. We need to not be left behind because we have a right to lead, a right to an education, we have a right for everything. What information I would like to share with the world is that people with disabilities are human. We need to support them, we need support. Any person with a disability is no different than a person without disability. It’s not an ability. They can do anything, they can walk, I can share with other people. So, we need persons with disabilities to be supported and to be included in everything. I would just like to say to the United Nations, we need real support, especially in conflict countries. Those who have never joined us, support us, and especially give us jobs so we can work for ourselves, and we can also do. As an Indigenous person, I love my culture—that’s the first thing. And as Indigenous people we are resourceful. In many countries Indigenous persons must remain as those who are owning the resources diligently. If the government wants to build something then they have to come to us. As Indigenous people, we also need respect.
Listen to the full interviews at: cs.org/rights.
We Are Advocating for the Same Issues Ipul Powesau is co-chair of the Papua New Guinea Assembly of Disabled Persons and member of the Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network, which is a part of the Disability Caucus of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. In 2012, the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund recognized that many of its grantees were Indigenous persons with disabilities from various regions of the world. Seven Indigenous leaders from the global south were invited to attend the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and I was one of those seven. Three of us came from the Pacific, two from Latin American, and one from Asia. We had a side event and it started the thought about developing a disability caucus under UNPFII. In 2013 a study [was] undertaken by the UNPFII looking at the situations of Indigenous persons with disabilities; I actually co-presented that report. The issues facing Indigenous persons with disabilities are similar. We are further marginalized because the issues with Indigenous people are still strong issues. That intersection of discrimination is pushing us further to the periphery, and we recognize that in order for our issues to be heard at these events, we need to form this network around the world. We are being funded by the Disability Rights Fund. If the Disability Rights Fund has other priorities, then we are going to be looking for funding. And so those are our challenges. The other challenge is communication. The issue of language; the issue of time differences, it’s been a big challenge for us. That’s not stopping us. We now have members from the African region, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, North America, and Nordic countries as well. We would like to build bridges with Indigenous people, walk together and leave no one behind. That’s what we would like to see. We recognize if we can talk together as one in one global voice, our voices will be heard louder. With one big voice and having this big stone thrown into the ocean creating this big ripple effect, we know that we will make a difference. I’ve recognized that having access to an education has made it easier for me. Understanding the government system, understanding the cultural system and looking at how we can build bridges—if we don’t have access to education that’s a big challenge. Indigenous persons with disabilities will continue to be marginalized. We are advocating for access to education for Indigenous persons with disabilities, particularly children with disabilities. In my country I am a great advocate. You know, a lot of our governments have signed on to the human rights conventions. I keep reminding the government of their legal obligations; they cannot do this thing alone, that we need to work together. Persons with disabilities have a global motto: “Nothing About Us, Without Us.” If we want to advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities, we as persons with disabilities, and particularly Indigenous persons with
disabilities, we know our issues. People cannot pretend to say that the government will do it for us. We really need to work together, to sit together at the same table, and discuss the issue together. We are people of the land; the land is a part of our life. You cannot separate people from the land, the seas, the mountains that we live in. When I look at the sky and I see the sun shining . . . our ancestors used to tell us that when you see the clouds forming this way it’s going to be either a strong wind a nice soft breeze. Today we have lost that [way of] looking at nature. [But] if we hold hands together we can help Mother Nature to still point us to where we all can go to. My word of advice is know Mother Nature. If we make Mother Nature angry, it will retaliate against us. But let’s work together, walk, and live with Mother Nature. We are advocating for the same issues, [so] let’s join hands together, let’s walk together. And let’s make the world a better place for us to live in.
Ipul Powesau from Papua New Guinea speaking at the UNPFII in 2013. Photo courtesy of the Disability Rights Fund.
“There are a number of reasons why disability would be more prevalent among Indigenous peoples than among the general population, including higher levels of poverty, increased exposure to environmental degradation, the impact of large projects such as dams or mining activities and the higher risk of being victims of violence." — UNPFII Study on the Situation of Indigenous Persons with Disabilities, May 2013 Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 21
Funding at the Margins IFIP Regional Gathering Addresses Marginalized Indigenous Sectors Agnes Portalewska (CS STAFF)
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ndigenous Peoples are too often thought of and referred to a homogeneous group, when in reality there are many subgroups and cross-sections within Indigenous communities. The International Funders for Indigenous Peoples’ (IFIP) regional gathering on June 5, hosted at the Boston Foundation, challenged funders to look closer—to focus specifically on Indigenous LGBTQ and Indigenous people with disabilities, and to consider Indigenous traditional knowledge as solutions to climate change. IFIP works with a network of 50 foundations, bringing together Indigenous leaders and funders to talk about critical change. Approximately 50 participants, including Indigenous leaders, the New England International Donors, Funders for LGBTQ Issues, The Boston Foundation, New England Biolabs Foundation, and the Disability Rights Fund were challenged to consider how philanthropy could support Indigenous Peoples who are at intersections of oppression: women, the disability community, rural communities, and LGBTQ persons. In her opening remarks, Myrna Cunningham (Miskita) asked the world to use Indigenous voices to speak about Indigenous issues, to remember that Indigenous peoples have collective rights and want to be recognized as peoples and included in international standards, and that culture is an important element for development. “We are human rights holders and should guide how funds are allocated. Now, we are in the era of implementing human rights,” she said. She urged funders to consider innovative ways of creating change where women’s capacity to negotiate can be shifted and customary law influenced. The morning workshop, Indigenous Wisdom and Adapting to Climate Change: Moving Towards Resilience, was led by three dynamic Indigenous climate justice leaders: Katya Wassillie (Yup’ik/Iñupiaq) of the Eskimo Walrus Commission in Alaska; Carla Garcia (Garifuna) of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH); and Greg Ch’oc (Q’eqchi’ Maya) of the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) of Belize. “Resilience is coping, but also about having more choices to survive,” said Ch’oc, referring to how his community of San Miguel, Toledo is dealing with food security, resource management, and land tenure security advocacy. Maya communities have been reintroducing traditional systems of cultivation of crops to strengthen existing systems, such as organic farming, mulching, composting, earthworm cultivation, and reintroduction of microorganisms from rainforest to fields. Wassillie spoke of the challenges climate change poses to subsistence hunting and fishing in Alaska. “Our traditions 22 • ww w. cs. org
say only take what you need, do not waste. Walrus is more than food for survival; it is a way of life, it is about coexistence with the environment.” The Eskimo Walrus Commission has been working with the Federal Wildlife Service on re-instigating quotas to expand marine mammal ordinances. “We need to increase the capacity of local organizations because it is difficult to sit at the same table as government officials if you don’t have the resources,” she said. Lastly, Garcia spoke of the land title challenges her community in Honduras has been facing for over 40 years, recently worsened by coastal erosion caused by climate change and rising sea levels. “Land is the mother for Garifuna community,” she said. “Land is important. Without land, we cannot give life. We are losing our ecosystem and our communities.” For Garcia, working to recover lands to move communities is an urgent priority, as is stopping deforestation caused by large scale development projects that were designed without community consultation. Indigenous communities in Honduras are also being affected by rivers drying up due to hydro dams. “Ask us how to develop territories and our futures,” she said. “We know how to take care of land and live with land.” The afternoon session, Indigenous Rights Funding at the Margins: Advancing the Rights of Indigenous Persons with Disabilities and Indigenous LGBTQ Communities, addressed the two historically marginalized groups within Indigenous rights movements, examining trends, opportunities, and gaps in foundation funding and how funding can address the intersectionality of multiple identities. It also proposed strategies for working across movements to advance the rights of all Indigenous Peoples. Panelists presented their experiences along with practical recommendations for funders, including the involvement of persons with disabilities and LGBTQ people in any decision-making relating to them: “Nothing about us, without us.” Lisa Adams of the Disability Rights Fund and Naa Hammond of Funders for LGBTQ Issues gave an overview of the funding landscape. Only 20 percent of global funding goes to human rights issues, and of that, only 5 percent is allocated to LGBTQ issues, 4 percent to disabilities, and 3 percent to Indigenous Peoples. There is a gap in taking a cross-sectional approach in funding. Compared to the general population, Indigenous LGBTQ persons disproportionately live in poverty, face physical violence and discrimination, miss more school, are at a higher risk for HIV, have limited access to justice, and suffer higher rates of suicide. “There is limited support and recognition of LGBTQ. Some view LGBTQ issues as external to Indigenous com- munities. There is rejection by community leaders. In Latin America, the role of the Catholic Church has added to the All photos by agnes portalewska
Clockwise from bottom left: Luis DiazAlbertini and Luis Emilio Ayllon Martinez; Katya Wassillie; Setareki Macanawai; Carla Garcia; Greg Ch’oc.
problem. Indigenous LGBTQ persons are working within complex situations and at the intersections of several movements,” said Luis Diaz-Albertini of American Jewish World Service, which is currently the only global funder for Indigenous LGBTQ issues. Diaz-Albertini mentioned several ways of increasing inclusiveness, such as creating knowledge through trainings; finding and connecting to LGBTQ groups; sharing requests for proposals; and partnering with other funders in the field. Luis Emilio Ayllon Martinez of Equidad TLGB, the first, and at present, only, organization of LGBT persons in Oruro, Bolivia. In Bolivia’s recent national elections, the Green Party selected Martinez as a candidate for the national legislature. Although he was not elected, he was the first openly gay national candidate who achieved a qualifying percentage of votes. “Bolivia is in a new period with an Indigenous president who has worked with the social movement. And there is a new constitution with local autonomy. They are always waving the flag of non-discrimination, but LBGTQ and women are not in the discussion,” he said. His recommendation to funders: “Support work in the small towns and cities, because all the funding goes to the big cities.” He also urged funders to focus
on the trans population, who have no access to education and employment and are in dire need of training and support. For persons with disabilities, funding has traditionally been focused on service provision and creating separate programs rather than inclusion within other movements. Adams said that people with disabilities make up 15 percent of the global population, and 80 percent live in the global south. Women with disabilities are also at greater risk of experiencing gender-based violence. According to USAID, women with disabilities comprise three-quarters of all disabled people in low and middle-income countries. The United Nations Development Programme found global literacy rates for people with disabilities to be just 3 percent, while the International Labour Organization cites unemployment rates among the disabled as high as 80 percent. Setareki Macanawai of the Pacific Disability Forum and Indigenous Persons with Disabilities Global Network in Fiji underscored the urgency of such grim statistics: “The movement of Indigenous persons with disabilities is fairly new and fairly young; we don’t necessarily know where we are heading. We share our story from two sides: Indigenous and disability. It is almost an identity crisis. We want to be seen, heard, and counted, and have the resources to participate.” Macanawai called on funders to support those who are doing the work but may not have credentials or a long track record. “Take a risk to bring our issues to the forefront,” he said. “Tell our stories to benefit those who are locked up in their houses, that cannot access school services. Invest in marginalized communities. At the end of the day, we are human beings and we want to enjoy life.”
Myrna Cunningham (center) interacts with funders.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 23
Indigenous Rights Radio On the Air in Rural Ghana Danielle DeLuca (CS STAFF)
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hana is home to a rich diversity of languages and cultures, and a mosaic of community radio stations reflect and celebrate this diversity by broadcasting in dozens of tribal languages. Radio Gurune is one of these stations. Located in the town of Bolgatanga in the Upper East region of Ghana, a 20-hour bus ride from the capital city of Accra, the station’s coverage is estimated to reach 2 million listeners in rural areas and carries just over the border into Burkina Faso. The station was founded by local community leader Lydia Ajono as a development tool for her community to address the needs of marginalized peoples like Indigenous women, farmers, and youth. In telling how she got her start working broadcasting government health programs before the station was founded, Ajono recalled fondly that she “was the first person to speak our native language of Gurune on the radio.” Radio Gurune broadcasts almost entirely in the Indigenous Gurune language, with a small slate of programs in English, the language of colonization in Ghana. “We know the best thing is to give voice to the voiceless, and in our area the women are voiceless. In our part of the world it is always a challenge to push women to come out and talk or to share their experiences and share their stories, not just to pass on their stories for others to tell for us. So that’s the angle that we try to do,” Ajono said. Indeed, the station makes a special effort to involve young women as news gatherers, studio managers, and on-air personalities. Radio Gurune has been
Radio Gurune is located in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region, Ghana.
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part of a program to empower rural women in family farming, which is a traditionally male-dominated area. “We have a strategy to get our women in our radio to understand [farming] issues first. So we empower our women to take the microphone and then be in the studio and go to the field to understand how to interact with women farmers, and also the challenges for women to participate in family farming,” Ajono said. Ajono trains the women in broadcast skills, production skills, news gathering, and in learning all the proper terms in their language. At a recent conference on community radio in Accra, hosted by AMARC, Ajono shared her experience: “Land is a very critical issue here. Women have access to land but they don’t own land. We see women engaged [as] farm workers but not farm owners. The radio empowers women to understand to be able to come together and to dialogue with community leaders and household leaders who are mostly men, to be able to access fertile lands. We empower them to use compost to be able to enrich the soil so that they can produce. In the area of crops, seeds are now a problem. The seeds that the government or the companies bring in are not always favorable to our farmers. For example, the maize seed—the farmers here raised it and the maize didn’t come, and later they realized the seeds need chemical fertilizer for it to survive. They didn’t harvest anything that year. So the community radio engages them and encourages them to use their traditional seeds and use compost so that they will be able to manage their own farms and store and keep some seed that they can always use.” For the past two years, Radio Gurune has also been broadcasting Indigenous Rights Radio programs. “I listened to them and thought they really talk about issues that we face here, so we decided to translate them into our local language,’’ Ajono explained.
The station used the scripts provided by Cultural Survival to create a 20-minute radio drama involving two recurring characters from their station’s usual drama programs, in which a male and female character discuss the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent in their community and the importance of Indigenous Peoples’ right to be consulted about development projects. The program, which aired weekly on Sundays, became very popular with listeners, who flooded the phone lines with calls to discuss the topic. “The listeners are so inspired by the programs. They realize that these are real issues that we are facing,’’ Ajono said. In fact, the community is currently addressing illegal logging by an Indian company felling ancient mahogany trees within tribal lands. The trees are crucial for agriculture in the area because they surround a stream that provides water into irrigation channels for local farmers. When the trees are cut down, the water is more prone to dry up. Ajono believes that the radio station’s programming on Free, Prior and Informed Consent was central to creating an uproar in the community in response to the logging company, and now the issue has been brought to the forefront of debate by local political leaders. Station volunteer Akolga Samuel noted, ‘’The radio is coming out with programs that enlighten people to understand the terrain of policies and understand how they can wake up themselves to fight for their rights. Once you are aware of your rights, no politician can cheat you or influence you in any way. [The audience] was much appreciative of these educational programs, which have brought these issues to light in this municipality and across the district.” Listeners frequently call in to the station to weigh in on the issue of participatory community development. “The Indigenous have their rights to information and development and participation. If you are informed about a project in your community, it makes you ready to participate and decide what will benefit you and what will not benefit you. This right to information is something that will help make decisions to be taken at the grassroots level and run to the top level,’’ one caller said. Another commended the program for informing local people, in the local language, with a local explanation. “You know, there are certain issues talked about that people don’t understand. But this is being brought to the local level, making the people more aware of what is happening,’’ he told the station in his native Gurune language, urging them to continue broadcasting the program. A female caller concurred, saying she was very happy to hear the information and praised the station for doing a wonderful job. “This program brings you to life, whether you are literate or you can speak English or not; it’s involving citizens’ participation in development projects. If this is implemented it will help us. Sometimes people who haven’t gone to school think they are vulnerable, but this [policy] will not exclude anyone because it involves participation in decision making,’’ she said. Another called in to thank the station. ‘’If there is going to be a development or construction, it needs to involve the people who are going to be beneficiaries. For example, take constructing a road. You need to let the people understand why you are constructing it, where the road is going, and All photos by Danielle DeLuca
Lydia Ajono, Radio Gurune founder, stands next to a 1KW transmitter, which allows the station to reach a listener audience of 2 million in rural Ghana.
Radio host Christopher Asola receives Indigenous Rights Radio programs in the studio at Radio Gurune.
what the road is going to do for them. The chiefs, the opinion leaders, the farmers, and the youth all need to understand the content and the benefits of a project before it goes on. In some cases, you see a bulldozer constructing a road through people’s farms without informing them! So it will hurt the people and they have to take a violent way of stopping it. But if this right to informed consent is implemented it will make people aware of how to handle community involvement, or even how to do any participatory work, by sharing techniques of bringing people together to understand the issues before they begin developmental projects. It will make the people live in peace through unity and development for all of them.’’ Listen to Indigenous Rights Radio at cs.org/rights.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 25
B a za a r a rt i st: The Man B ehind the M asks
Ujjwal Shrestha Cory Champer
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rowing up in Kathmandu, Nepal, Ujjwal Shrestha learned to make paper lanterns from his family. The lanterns are made out of Himalayan Iokta paper, also known as Himalayan Shrubs. By age 12 Shrestha was making paper lanterns professionally, as well as other handmade paper goods like diaries, scrapbooks, photo albums, and wrapping paper. At 14, he learned how to make and paint papier-mâché masks. The family Chidrakar, who are well known for their paintings, taught Shrestha his newfound passion. The papier-mâché masks are made from clay, glue, paper, and sometimes fabric. Natural colors, primarily bright red, are often used to paint the masks by grinding up stone and mixing the grounds with chemicals. Describing his process, Shrestha says, “I especially like the trick of coating a thin layer of Iokta paper to provide strength to the clay masks before coloring them to bring forth facial expressions of the deities who we worship as guardians of our city walls.” Papier-mâché masks date back to the 15th Century when the Malla Dynasty ruled Nepal. The Malla rulers presented mask dancing as the cultural and economic force to make the people more involved in following the specific agricultural cycle of the Kathmandu Valley, which is why several festivals are hosted in Nepal in the month of September. According to Shrestha, the Nav Durga mask dance is one of most popular dance festivals. The dance is performed in 21 public squares of the city and in 19 villages of the Kathmandu Valley over nine months. The masks that are used in the festivals are then burned and destroyed to mark the end of the festival. For the next year, the tradition continues and new masks are made for the next festival. Shrestha’s goal is to create a brand name for his handmade goods and to become more involved in international markets: “bigger markets have more opportunity,” he says. “People are more attracted to foreign products, which are available at cheaper prices in markets.” Shrestha says he relies heavily on tourism in the Kathmandu markets, but the opportunity to sell handmade goods in domestic and international markets will create year-round jobs—giving artisans a chance to make money, create a brand name, and keep the tradition of making handmade goods alive. Cultural Survival Bazaars promote the handmade goods from the foundation Crafted in Kathmandu, where sacred paintings, masks, and other handmade goods are displayed. Crafted in Kathmandu was launched in 2002 to support artisans and craftspeople living in and caring for historical cities such as Kathmandu. Shrestha says that after Nepal was opened to foreigners in 1951, the performing arts and traditional crafts began to decline and families soon began to pursue different fields due to a lack of buyers and interest in the handmade goods. However, a few artisans and their families stayed and continued crafting because it is a passion of theirs. Crafted in Kathmandu, which is based in Nepal, is run by Shrestha and other artisans who teach and train others how to make handmade goods through workshops in woodcraft, stone craft, jewelry design, drawing and painting. “They give knowledge to others. Lots of the people who come to these workshops are from an artisan family because not everyone knows how to do all the crafts,” he says. Since the earthquake that devastated Nepal last April, Shrestha and his family are among the thousands of displaced survivors who have been moving around between homes and tarp shelters. “We won’t get local business here due to the quake. The tourism sector is badly affected,” he says. “[So] at this time we really want international support to sustain the artisans and their families.” For more information on Crafted in Kathmandu, visit: craftedinkathmandu.com.np.
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Ujjwal Shrestha showcasing his art at the Tiverton, RI Bazaar in July.
Check out our upcoming schedule of Cultural Survival Bazaars at www.bazaar.cs.org. October 10–12: Amherst, MA December 11–13: Boston, MA December 18–20: Cambridge, MA
Photos courtesy of Ujjwal Shrestha
s t af f s pot lig h t
Dave Favreau with Bazaar vendor Isaya Lukumay (Maasai), executive director of The Warriors Organization based in Tanzania.
Merci, Dave
Photo by Jess Cherofsky.
Cultural Survival Bazaar Manager Dave Favreau Leaves After 11 Years of Service Cory Champer
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fter eleven years, ninety-nine Bazaars, thousands of new members recruited, and millions of dollars raised for Indigenous artists, Dave Favreau has left Cultural Survival and moved to France with his wife to pursue a career in professional hockey. Favreau studied cultural anthropology, sociology, communications, and creative writing at Framingham State University and also played NCAA hockey for Framingham State. When Favreau first heard about Cultural Survival from a friend in 2004, he was working as a toll booth collector on the Massachusetts Turnpike. “I could not believe it. I was surprised there was an organization like this in Massachusetts, this close to Boston,” he recalled. He wrote to Cultural Survival and soon signed on as an intern. Favreau’s first assignment was to work with the Simba Maasai Outreach Organization helping to coordinate their United States tour. He was then asked to sell Cultural Survival Quarterly back issues door to door; the magazine was printed in black and white at that time, and was not as successful. He was successful, however, at selling ads in a program booklet for Bazaars and selling memberships at the Bazaars. “I made my desire known that I wanted to work for the organization and that I loved the organization. I really had a passion for making a difference,” Favreau said. Cultural Survival Bazaars started in 1982 as a single, annual event on the Harvard University campus. In 2002 a Bazaar was added in Tiverton, Rhode Island; 3 years later Cultural Survival expanded the bazaars into one of its major fundraising programs, operating as many as 12 per year.
Favreau first gained experience with the Bazaars in 2005 when he worked the membership table, regularly convincing as many as 5 percent of attendees to become members. In one weekend he recruited nearly 125 new members to Cultural Survival, and he became the full time program manager for the Bazaars in 2007. “From 2006 on, we worked a lot on improving fair trade standing of the products, bringing more artists in, the quality of the items, and bringing in more of the public,” Favreau said. “Seeing the artists really make a living out of doing their art and living their dreams through their culture and art, [was] the most rewarding part of my job.” In his 11 years with Cultural Survival, Favreau has helped raised almost $6 million for Indigenous artists and fair trade vendors. He has attracted almost 400,000 people to the Bazaars and recruited about 1,000 new Cultural Survival members. His advertising and outreach for Cultural Survival has reached well over 1 million people. He has also raised approximately $100,000 in event sponsorships and school tours for the Simba Maasai Outreach Organization, La FOMMA (Fortaleza de la Mujer Maya/Strength of the Mayan Woman), underwriting for community radio programs in Guatemala, and other Cultural Survival fundraising efforts. Favreau ends his time at Cultural Survival on August 4, right after the Harvard Bazaar, his 99th. “Although I am leaving Cultural Survival as an employee,” Favreau said, “the organization, the mission, all those I worked with and all those I worked for will forever be dear to my heart. I hope to help Cultural Survival in any way I can in the future, even with limited means, and hope that perhaps those reading this story will feel compelled to give a donation to a great organization doing amazing work in partnership with Indigenous communities all over the world.” Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 27
get i nvo lve d
Realizing Women’s Rights The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Joshua Cooper Human rights are measured through United Nations human rights conventions and covenants. Regular reviews monitor how states are realizing the rights recognized in the treaties. Civil society can influence international institutions by participating in every phase of the review process. Involvement of Indigenous Peoples is imperative to seek justice through every review, contributing to global standard setting. In this series we aim to break down the core treaties.
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he Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is an international human rights treaty pertaining to women to guarantee gender justice. Enacted on September 3, 1981, it created a comprehensive legal standard codifying the rights of women in public international law and a committee to regularly review the process on elimination of discrimination against women. The revolutionary spirit of CEDAW is its applicability in private and public realms of society, as it focuses on all forms of discrimination against women around the world.
Composition and Consideration of Country Reports
A 23-member committee of experts reviews States as guarantors of the rights in CEDAW’s upholding principles of universality, indivisibility, inalienability, and interdependence of all rights. Equality and non-discrimination against women is central in all deliberations and actions of the committee. Experts review reports prepared by States and strongly encourage consultation with civil society, specifically women’s associations. When a country ratifies the Convention, it must submit an initial
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report within one year. Periodic reviews are subsequently due every four years. The committee meets three times a year for sessions of at least three weeks to review State reports, host dialogues on imminent issues facing women fighting for fundamental freeThe International Labour Organization doms, and draft concluding recommendations based on these meets annually in June at the Palais interactive dialogues. On the opening day of the session, civil des Nations in Geneva. society can speak directly to committee members. During the lunch session the day prior to review of one’s State, there is also an opportunity for civil society to discuss the main issues that deserve attention during the interactive dialogue with the State. It is important for individuals to be succinct in raising specific rights to be respected, protected, and fulfilled. This is to ensure experts have significant time for questions and comments so they will be prepared to fully engage on specific situations in each State. Each review is five hours long, with States opening the process by sharing steps taken to realize women’s rights. A rapporteur assigned by CEDAW members begins the interactive dialogue with questions and comments regarding the report, responses to the list of issues, and specific situations that require immediate action. The remaining members ask questions and make comments in the order of the articles of the Convention to the state. Before each article is discussed, the country responds to the experts’ points, and in some cases there is followup by experts to fully understand the situation of women’s rights in the State. At the conclusion of the review, the rapporteur and the State each make closing statements. Before the session concludes, recommendations are issued at a press conference in Geneva that are to be implemented before the next review. Prior to departing Geneva, there is a working group meeting of CEDAW to prepare for the next session.
Optional Protocol to Address Rights Violations
One tool to tackle human rights violations is an Optional Protocol, drafted by the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 1992, adopted on October 6, 1999, and enacted on December 10, 2000. Under the protocol, the committee considers petitions claiming violations of the Convention. An appointed five-member working group on communications reviews all submissions. States must ratify the protocol in order for women to be able to bring complaints to the committee for consideration. There are two mechanisms included in the Optional Protocol. The common practice is the communication procedure, which allows individuals and groups to file complaints regarding violations of rights enshrined in the Convention directly to the committee. The complaint is forwarded to the State in question with a request for a written response to the rights violations. There is no time limit regarding claims considered. The submission must detail the violation of CEDAW and ask the committee to provide advice in terms of policies and practices to address the violation. The State has six months to respond. Additional information can be sought regarding the State’s alleged violation from UN specialized agencies as well as civil society. The communication details the specific violation of CEDAW and demonstrates that domestic remedies available were taken with no redress provided. The communication can also prove whether domestic measures are ineffective, unavailable, or unreasonably prolonged, and could lead to even more grave situations and harassment for the complainant in the country. Once the communication is received and deemed admissible, the case merits are considered. The committee can request interim measures due to the potential for harm or irreparable damage to the complainant’s life or situation. The process is considered confidential while being considered; however, the committee can chose to make it public. The committee issues its finding and concluding recommendations to the State. At the subsequent regular State review of CEDAW, there will be a review of the implementation of the recommendations. The second mechanism is the inquiry procedure. Under this procedure, the CEDAW committee can conduct broader inquiries into systematic violations of women’s rights. A formal visit to a State being reviewed is a potential part of the process with an option for a hearing to be held. However, consent of the country is a prerequisite. Under the protocol, States can ratify the Convention but refuse to allow the committee to conduct an official visit. The review of all information gathered and reviewed by the committee results in an adoption of the findings and citation of whether a violation has officially occurred. The committee also identifies specific actions by the State to remedy if it finds a violation of women’s fundamental freedoms has occurred. The committee’s findings are published and the State has six months to respond. Remedies that exist under the optional protocol include the review or repeal of existing offending laws, adoption of specific measures to prevent and remedy future violations of CEDAW articles, and payment of monetary damages.
General Recommendations
General recommendations are essential extensions of the Convention. Administered under Article 21, they address any issue affecting women that is deemed to receive more attention. Recommendations may elaborate on articles in the Convention and provide guidance to governments on interpretation of enshrined
rights, or outline actions to be addressed for compliance with the Convention. Participation in the creation of a general recommendation is encouraged in a three-stage process. The committee conducts an open dialogue among experts, NGOs and interested individuals, and UN specialized agencies. The open dialogue is based on prepared position papers and conversations developed during the interactive exchange of the open dialogue. A CEDAW member is then tasked with drafting the general recommendation to be discussed at a subsequent session where the revised draft will be adopted. Over 30 general recommendations have been issued so far, along with a general recommendation jointly drafted with the Committee on the Rights of the Child. There is currently a call for a general recommendation on Indigenous women to illustrate the intersection of rights regarding gender and indigeneity.
CEDAW Cycle of Consideration
The UN human rights treaty body process has five phases: preparation, interaction, consideration, adoption, and implementation. The first and final phases begin in one’s community and country, where human rights matters most—in Indigenous Peoples’ daily lives. The middle phases are centered around Geneva and the campaign with the committee experts. For each phase it is essential to coordinate a creative campaign in all three levels of grassroots community, country, and global civil society. The preparation phase is geared toward educating people to participate effectively and prioritizing specific rights to raise at the UN human rights treaty body. The heart of the action is examining the record of rights and starting a creative campaign to realize these rights. The interaction phase consists of initiating participation with the CEDAW committee members and ensuring that the interactive dialogue is rooted in reality. This phase prepares the committee to be able to better discuss the facts to change conditions. It is also where people interact with their States to partner, if possible, and pressure when necessary for the realization of rights. The building of relationships is the basis for the interaction phase. The consideration phase revolves around the rights raised in the review of the State. The motivation of the human rights mechanisms review should be generated from the grassroots level and support the demands for dignity at the global level. This phase should empower people coordinating the campaign, realizing their ability to advocate and create accountability of their government utilizing the UN human rights treaty body institutions. The adoption phase is where general recommendations are issued to the government to realize rights in a state. It is the result of the entire process, from shadow reports to examination of States, including briefings by civil society with human rights treaty experts. The implementation phase closes the cycle, ensuring the process results in rights realization for people. Impacted individuals and concerned communities should be at the forefront in demanding their governments guarantee fundamental freedoms reflected in the concluding recommendations. —Joshua Cooper is a professor at the University of Hawai’i, West Oahu, Kapolei and director of the Hawai’i Institute for Human Rights.
Read the Convention at: goo.gl/ldHhu.
Cultural Survival Quarterly
September 2015 • 29
Stand with Cultural Survival to Advance the Rights and Cultures of Indigenous Peoples First
Central American
Indigenous Community
Radio Conference
Mid-January 2016 • Kuna Yala, Panama
To find out more, contact consent@cs.org.
Organized by AMARC, Cultural Survival, Asociación Sobreviencia Cultural, and the Kuna General Congress. This working group will establish the foundation for a Central American regional Indigenous community radio network. Resources, technologies, good practices, and political strategies, will be shared with the goal of supporting Indigenous Peoples’ struggles in defense of their identities, lands, and human rights.
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