The Americas

Incredible injustice for indigenous women

Editor's note: The following was named Best Editorial of 2007 by the Native American Journalists Association at its annual awards banquet July 26.

It was originally published in Volume 26, Issue 47. Indian Country Today presents it again in appreciation and acknowledgment of those who work tirelessly toward justice for Indian girls and women.

''From the oldest to the youngest, Native women are disrespected and treated in the most humiliating fashion, living and dying without justice or the knowledge that their granddaughters will live free of the violence they experienced.'' This passage, taken from testimony by Sacred Circle on the Violence Against Women Act, helps breathe life into the devastating statistics at the center of a groundbreaking report on violence against indigenous women.

Amnesty International's 113-page report, ''Maze of Injustice - The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA,'' released April 24, [2007], asserts that the U.S. government has ''created a complex maze of tribal, state and federal jurisdictions that often allows perpetrators to rape with impunity,'' and that these crimes are ''compounded by failures at every level of the justice system.''

American Indian and Alaska Native women are nearly three times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. According to the Department of Justice, nearly 90 percent of the reported cases of rapes and sexual assault of Native women are committed by non-Native men. It is a staggering legacy for women to ''fully expect to be raped,'' as one elder stated in the report, because they are Indian.

The report contains interviews with courageous survivors and advocates, including stories of abuse and injustice so vivid, the mind does not want to believe they are true. Each story illustrates why so many survivors describe their experiences seeking justice as being raped ''all over again.'' Incompetent medical personnel, non-responsive or slow-moving law enforcement, conflicting jurisdictions and underlying racism that affects court proceedings are common obstacles...

The Americas

Día Internacional de los Pueblos Indígenas 2008 (9 de agosto)

OPS: Podemos evitar otro patrimonio en extinción

International Day of Indigenous Peoples 2008

PAHO: We can avoid the extinction of another endangered heritage

Washington, DC - ...On the occasion of International Day of Indigenous Peoples 2008, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) stated that "recent and historical processes in the [Latin American] region have identified different cultures where coexist a range of relationships that, with regards to the indigenous in most societies, are asymmetric, subordinated and conflicted."

Studies and reports prepared by the hemispheric organization reiterate that most of the 45 million indigenous people living in the Americas today are confronted by a growing inequity in health and access to basic sanitation. Dr. Jose Luis Di Fabio, Area Manager of Technology and Health Services Delivery within PAHO, said that illiteracy, unemployment, lack of land and territory, high rates of morbidity and mortality from preventable causes, and limitations on access and utilization of basic health services, education, housing and others, "are problems that still affect the majority of indigenous communities and affect their quality of life and their health."

"Minimum results"

The International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2004) was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 with the purpose and commitment to strengthen international cooperation to help solve the problems affecting indigenous peoples in areas such as human rights, environment, development, education and health...

In its assessment of the progress in health of indigenous populations since 1995, PAHO concluded that the results were "minimal" and that the most serious problems remained "still unresolved..."

- Pan American Health Organization

August 7, 2008

Guatemala

Celebran Día Nacional e Internacional de los Pueblos Indígenas

In Celebration of Indigenous People's Day

The city of Santa Cruz del Quiche - Organizations of the Quiche Mayan ethnic community have organized a wide range of activities to celebrate Indigenous People's Day on August 9, 2008.

Among the organizations that are presenting the events are the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala (ALMG), the association Ajb'atz Quiché network, Defensoría K'iche [Quiche Defense] and the municipality of the city of Santa Cruz del Quiche.

Quiche liaison Tomas Matias Gutierrez told Cerigua that there is progress in recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples in the world. The Indigenous were previously thought to be an obstacle to development.

The United Nations must recognize the existence and importance of native peoples because, despite the exclusion, marginalization and ethnocide to which we have been subjected, we are contributing to the welfare of the world.

The celebration allows sharing capabilities of science and technology with Maya people throughout society, since there are now more likely to open opportunities for participation of different sectors, changes occur in the educational system with the introduction of various Mayan elements the school curriculum.

For true harmony to exist within Guatemalan society we should strengthen the principles that to understand and accept other cultures is the only way to eliminate these prejudices, that only exist to hurt people.

The World

U.N. celebrates International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples

August 9th is the 14th International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, and we hope you will join us in celebrating a particularly momentous year in indigenous rights. Among the milestones this year, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in a near-unanimous vote, and the governments of Australia and Canada formally apologized for their egregious forced-assimilation policies. The event is being celebrated at the United Nations today with presentations by a range of UN dignitaries from UNESCO and the UN Development Program, as well as chair the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (and Cultural Survival board member) Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Ban's statement, released before the event, acknowledges indigenous peoples' "marginalization, their extreme poverty, the expropriation of their traditional lands and other grave human rights abuses" and also makes special mention of the disappearance of indigenous languages.

- Ellen L. Lutz Executive Director

August 8, 2008

See also:

Mexico, Latin America

Mujeres En La Conferencia Internacional Sobre Sida

Women's Participation at the 2008 AIDS Conference in Mexico City

About 33 million people are living with HIV globally. Some 1.6 million of these people live in Latin America. In its latest report, announced for the first time a decline in the spread of the epidemic, but it also warned of its feminization. Sixty percent of the young people between 15 and 20-years-old who are living with HIV / AIDS are women.

In Mexico, official data estimates that 115,651 cases exist. Their statistics show an accelerating increase in the rate of feminization. Over the past two decades the gender ratio of victims has risen from 23 men to three men for every female affected. Faced with this reality, public policies, care, prevention efforts and the budgeting for them, have been limited.

Violence against women is both a cause and consequence of HIV, and one of the main factors associated with the accelerated process of feminization of the pandemic.

For thousands of women, the threat of violence prevents access to information, access to HIV testing, disclosure of their HIV status, access to services to prevent HIV transmission to infants, and the receipt of treatment and counseling, even when they know they are infected.

Mexico is the first country in Latin Americas to host the global AIDS conference, which gathers health professionals, scientists, donors, personalities and decision makers, as well as non-governmental organizations and people living with HIV.

That is why CIMAC has opened this space to make visible to women living with HIV with the creation of print and radio news stories, statistics and links to other organizations dealing with the issue.

Mexico, the U.S.

!!CAMINO A CASA!! A program to support integrity and rights of immigrant kids

Something unusual is happening at the U.S.-Mexico border. Every day thousands of innocent hearts embark on a trip (for many of them without return). Their goal is to reunite with their loved ones, who left before in search of a better future. The numbers reported are alarming. The list of deported children who are repatriated from the United States has forced the border-state government of Sonora to carry out urgent measures to help these minors, one of which is the program “On the Road Home.”

The objective of the program is to provide protection and attention to kids who arrive completely alone at border ports of Sonora, Mexico. Their stay in these areas makes them vulnerable to the violation of their human rights. They are exposed to physical abuse from authorities, guides and thieves. They can become victims of negligence and kidnapping, sexual abuse, accidents or sickness (such as dehydration, diarrhea, bronchitis, etc.), organ trafficking, stinging or biting by poisonous animals, hunger and thirst. The list of risks and abuses can be endless, which, despite their young age, they suffer only because they took the chance of risking everything with one goal in mind: to reunite with their loved ones.

Due to this alarming situation, Ms. Lourdes Laborin de Bours, President of the Sonora DIF, made a call for the solidarity of all the states that drive out immigrants. The response from the state of Hidalgo was immediate. In a formal meeting, B.A. Michael Angelo Osorio Chong, representing the state, signed a collective agreement with the Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours Castelo.

At this meeting, Osorio Chong said, “We have to move on from speeches to actions”… A good example of this immediate action was the signing of the collective agreement to create a trust that institutionalizes support for attention to these immigrant kids...

Mexico

Mexico's Social Service Agency Announces Major Drive to Rescue Trafficked Children in Tapachula

In Tapachula there is an entire 'army' of children who are exploited by their own parents

City of Tapachula in Chiapas state - Alejandra Cruz Toledo Zebadúa, director of Mexico's federal social services agency, Integral Family Development (DIF), has announced that it has begun a major initiative to rescue street children who are exploited by mafias.

In a press conference entitled "Rescuing Street Children", Toledo, together with migration and human rights authorities as well as officials from the consulates of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, laid-out the details of her strategy for saving street children from the hands of the exploiters...

DIF director Toledo declared that the primary objective of this first meeting was to take action to rescue street children, and to offer them integrated physical and emotional assistance services. Director Toledo added that all of the participating organizations are working hard to achieve these ends.

The first lady of Tapachula added: "We will offer [these children] every possible form of assistance. They will have access to health programs, education, good nutrition and shelter, so that they have the support needed to become whole women and men. We want to avoid the continued growth in this open wound in society."

The consular officials from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras congratulated federal, state and local officials, and expressed their support for taking collaborative action to assist street children. One of the Central American officials added that these street children "are not an embarrassment. They are a reality in our society. We have to help them..."

[Extended Translation]