Jakarta, April 21, 2016 – Although the Bill on Recognition and Protection of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples failed to be included in the 2016 national legislative program (prolegnas), this did not break the spirit of indigenous women. The conditions that made 70 million indigenous peoples disappointed by the results of the 17th Plenary Session of the House of Representatives at the beginning of the year, in fact, it gave good news for the indigenous women’s movement. This political space provides an opportunity for indigenous women’s rights to be included in the process of drafting policies related to indigenous peoples. In order to guarantee the rights of indigenous women in the Indigenous Peoples draft Bill, PEREMPUAN AMAN was involved in the policy-making process.
In doing collaboration with AMAN and other supporting organizations, the indigenous women’s organization was involved in revising the academic draft of the Indigenous Peoples’ Bill. In the general dialogue “Encouraging the Indigenous Peoples’ Draft Bill Gender Perspective”, Deputy 2 AMAN Rukka Sombolinggi said that “This draft is the most masculine. Where are indigenous women in this text? Not many.” On that occasion, Rukka also stressed that the rights of indigenous women need to be firmly stated in the Bill of Indigenous Peoples. “In my opinion, there must be fastening on the rights that apply to indigenous men and women,” he added. The same thing was also said by the Commissioner of the National Commission for Women 2007-2014, Arimbi Heroepoetri “if the issue of indigenous women is in the Indigenous Peoples’ Draft Bill, then the structure of the Academic Script of Draft Bill should be dismantled.”
The rights of indigenous women are constitutional rights set out in the constitution 1945, as well as other legislations such as Law no. 39 of 1999 concerning Human Rights, and Law no. 7 of 1984 concerning CEDAW. Referring to this policy, the State is responsible for respecting, protecting, fulfilling the rights of the citizens including the rights of indigenous women. However, in reality, there are still many violations of indigenous women’s rights. The annexation of indigenous territories resulted in impoverishment of indigenous women. This situation makes women be vulnerable to violence, discrimination and marginalization in domestic, community and state. Impoverishment experienced by indigenous women threatens to destroy the diverse knowledge of indigenous women such as the procurement of seeds, traditional medicines, arts, traditional rituals and so on.
Then, why do indigenous peoples also need to encourage indigenous women’s rights in the Bill of Indigenous Peoples? One of them is the role and the contribution of indigenous women are in natural resources in indigenous territories when the situation of forestry agrarian conflict emerges as leaders in fighting for their collective rights as part of indigenous peoples. In addition, the portraits of indigenous women, one of the groups within the indigenous community, are marginalized and discriminated against by a variety of policies at various levels which their rights need to be recognized, protected and fulfilled by the State. TitiPangestu
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