From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Date: 26 Jan 93 18:03 PST
Subject: Manila: Indigenous Women's Conf
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476701050:000:3555
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Jan 26 18:03:00 1993


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: Manila: Indigenous Women's Conf

/* Written 12:23 pm  Jan 25, 1993 by geonet@gn.apc.org in
igc:geo2.interdoc */

INDIGENOUS WOMEN'S CONFAB SLATED
BAGUIO CITY -- Indigenous women from 19 countries are converging
here for the "First Asian Indigenous Women's Conference" to be
held January 24-30.  The Conference is the first to be held for
Asia's 150 million indigenous population. It opens venues for
women's voices to be heard during the UN- proclaimed International
Year for the World's Indigenous Peoples, said Victoria Corpuz.
Corpuz heads the non-government Cordillera Women's Education and
Resource Center (CWERC), main host of the conference.  Indigenous
women up to this day play vital roles in ensuring the survival of
indigenous peoples, cultures and biodiversity. "Indigenous women
are the main food producers in subsistence economies which persist
in many indigenous people's communities," organizers said in a
statement.  "Their reproductive roles of bearing and rearing the
future generation are done amid poverty and dire lack of health
and social services," the statement added.  Despite all the odds,
indigenous women have proved to be "capable resource managers and
environment protectors." The participants are also expected to
dissect the impact on women of indigenous traditions and culture,
fundamentalist religions, transnational corporations such as those
in logging and mining, militarism and state violence, official
development aid, foreign debt, media and the educational ssystem.
Reproductive health and sexuality of indigenous women shall also
be reviewed.  Issues to be tackled in the conference include
brideprice, dowry deaths and arranged marriages in India;
population control and forced mass sterilization in Bangladesh;
transmigration in West Papua; logging and deforestation in Sarawak
and Sabah; continuing militarization in the Philippines; dams in
India and sexual trafficking in Thailand.  The weeklong conference
is itself a crash course on feminism as it aims to trace how
"neocolonialism" brought with it what the conference organizers
call "patriarchal" (male-dominated) political and economic growth
models which, they say, further "marginalized" indigenous women.
The conference is also a culture-filled affair. How culture and
indigenous women helped maintain "people's strength and dignity"
shall be carefully studied as one of the bases for an alternative
development model that is more sustainable and earthfriendly.
Participants are expected to come out with an "Asian Indigenous
Women's Declaration of Unity" to be forwarded to the United
Nations. Participants hope the declaration will influence policies
of various Asian governments.  The conference will gather 200
indigenous women from the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia
(particularly West Papua and East Timor which are seeking
independence), Burma, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, China Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam, Laos,
Kampuchea, Japan and Taiwan.  Their issues rarely heard, women
from these countries will seek to "gather strength from each
other," said an organizing official.  The Baguio Conference is a
postlude to the 1985 Nairobi Conference and a prelude to the
Fourth World Conference on Women to be held in Beijing, China in
1995, which closes the UN-declared Decade for Women that began in
1985.  (Maurice B. Malanes) Philippine News & Features
*** For further information, see the bulletin board MNL.MEET, or
email to "UUCP:rverzola@phil.gn.apc.org"