Gender, Minorities and Indigenous Peoples
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report Gender, Minorities and Indigenous Peoples By Fareda Banda and Christine Chinkin Acknowledgements The authors thank Thoko Kaime for valuable research Minority Rights Group International (MRG) gratefully assistance and all those who contributed information and acknowledges the support of all organizations and materials. individuals who gave financial and other assistance for this report, including DANIDA. Commissioning Editor: Katrina Minority Rights Group International Payne. Report Editor: Sophie Richmond. Minority Rights Group International (MRG) is a non- governmental organization (NGO) working to secure the The Author rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and Fareda Banda is a Lecturer in the Laws of Africa at the indigenous peoples worldwide, and to promote cooperation School of oriental and African Studies in the University of and understanding between communities. Our activities are London. Her areas of interest include human rights of focused on international advocacy, training, publishing and women, comparative family law, law and development and outreach. We are guided by the needs expressed by our dispute processing. Her first book, Women, Law and Human worldwide partner network of organizations which represent Rights: An African Perspective is to be published by Hart minority and indigenous peoples. Publishers in December 2004. MRG works with over 150 organizations in nearly 50 Christine Chinkin is currently Professor of International Law at countries. Our governing Council, which meets twice a year, the London School of Economics and Political Science and has members from 10 different countries. MRG has an Overseas Affiliated Faculty Member, University of consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Michigan, School of Law. Her primary teaching and research Social Council (ECOSOC), and observer status with the interests are in public international law and dispute African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights resolution. She is the author of Third Parties in International (ACHPR). MRG is registered as a charity and a company Law (Oxford University Press, 1993) and co-author of The limited by guarantee under English law. Registered charity Boundaries of International Law; A Feminist Analysis no. 282305, limited company no. 1544957. (Manchester University Press, 2000) which was awarded the American Society of International Law's Certificate of Merit for a work of ‘outstanding scholarship’. © Minority Rights Group International 2004 All rights reserved Material from this publication may be reproduced for teaching or for other non-commercial prurposes. No part of it may be reproduced in any form for commercial purposes without the prior express permission of the copyright holders. For further information please contact MRG. A CIP catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. ISBN 1 904584 22 5. Published August 2004. Typeset by Kavita Graphics. Printed in the UK on recycled paper. Cover Photo San couple in South Africa. Paul Weinburg/Panos Pictures. Gender, Minorities and Indigenous Peoples is published by MRG as a contribution to public understanding of the issue which forms its subject. The text and views of the authors do not necessarily represent in every detail and in all its aspects, the collective view of MRG. Gender, Minorities and Indigenous Peoples By Fareda Banda and Christine Chinkin Contents Preface 2 Introduction 3 Basic concepts 4 International human rights law 7 The intersection of race and sex discrimination 11 Minority and indigenous women and culture 18 Membership, citizenship and family issues 23 Conclusion 28 Recommendations 29 Relevant international instruments 31 Notes 33 Bibliography 36 Preface While it is generally acknowledged that women suffer dis- Minority Rights Group International (MRG) does not crimination, women who are also members of minority or claim to have all the answers. As a body working to pro- indigenous communities are particularly marginalized. As mote minority and indigenous peoples’ rights, and to with male members of minority and indigenous com- promote peaceful cooperation between communities, we munities, they lack access to political power and face seek to mainstream gender equality issues throughout our discrimination in their access to services and rights. How- work. We are already reaping the benefits of this approach, ever, as women they face these problems and more. with a far greater understanding of the issues that we seek The aim of this report, Gender, Minorities and Indige- to address. We recognize that, in the process of producing nous Peoples, is twofold: to encourage those working on this report, we have learnt a great deal and will be using minority and indigenous peoples’ rights to consider the this knowledge to continue to improve the mainstreaming issues from a gender perspective, and to encourage those of gender equality issues throughout our work. working on gender equality and women’s rights to include Gender, Minorities and Indigenous Peoples is written by minorities and indigenous peoples within their remit. Fareda Banda and Christine Chinkin, who are both inter- This is no easy task. Both gender equality and human national human rights lawyers and gender specialists. The rights are under-resourced fields; further, despite some report has an international law and advocacy focus. It good intentions, neither gender equality nor minority and considers the nature of the discrimination faced by indigenous rights are fully mainstreamed within interna- minorities and indigenous peoples from a gender perspec- tional law or human rights. However, there is a slow but tive, the international legal standards relating to minority growing awareness that minority and indigenous peoples’ and indigenous peoples and women, and the degree to rights cannot be realized without a gender focus, that is, which international treaty bodies – with a particular focus without women’s and men’s, boys’ and girls’ issues being on the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination considered an essential part of the picture. In short, to Against Women and the Committee on the Elimination quote the United Nations Secretary-General, to ‘every of Racial Discrimination – mainstream the intersecting human rights violation there is a gender element’.1 issues of gender and minority and indigenous rights in However, many continue to believe that raising gender their monitoring of states’ compliance with international equality issues is divisive. Female activists from minority human rights standards. or indigenous communities have to be extremely strong to Using case studies and examples from around the raise issues that confront them. They often face sexism, world, the authors show how gender intersects with other racism and violence from the majority community, and forms of discrimination and consider the consequences of frequently sexism and violence from within their own failing to recognize this and to take action. In addition, community (to say nothing of issues around ageism, class, several key issues for minority and indigenous peoples are disability, sexuality, etc.). stressed in this report, including the vexed issue of culture Feminist organizations were criticized in the past for – which can be both a positive and negative force for failing to recognize or include minority and indigenous women’s human rights – group membership, citizenship, women’s interests and concerns. While there are many participation, land rights and family law. The report con- gender-based organizations that work with minority or cludes with a set of recommendations to further the indigenous peoples, and a far smaller number of minority integration of gender equality and minority and indige- and indigenous-run organizations, some groups working nous peoples’ rights. to promote gender equality and women’s rights arguably still have a long way to go before they become fully inclu- sive in their approach. Mark Lattimer Director August 2004 2 GENDER, MINORITIES AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES Introduction This report examines gender, minorities and indigenous race, and from within the group, from men who view peoples within an international law framework. Although women as inferior and subordinate. it refers to the treatment of minority men and women, The report describes how the prohibition of discrimi- the report focuses on minority and indigenous women. nation in international human rights law has placed This reflects the reality that, although both minority and people within a single category, identified through such indigenous men and women experience discrimination, it characteristics as race, sex, religion or ethnicity, and has is women who most suffer multiple discriminations. It failed until recently to take account of the reality that also marks the gap in the literature and practice; many of people have multiple, interlocking identities that shape the existing reports about minorities and indigenous peo- their lives. A Roma or Aborigine woman is primarily nei- ples do not mention gender and, while it is not explicitly ther Roma or Aborigine, nor female. She is clearly both. stated, the majority of such reports are about men and use The report looks at how human rights instruments have men as the normative framework. The same is true of started, albeit slowly, to recognize the ways that different international governmental and non-governmental organi- discriminations intersect and overlap, and how human zations (NGOs), except for those directed