Introduction
1. The present general recommendation provides guidance to States parties on legislative, policy and other relevant measures to ensure the implementation of their obligations in relation to the rights of Indigenous women and girls under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. There are an estimated 476.6 million Indigenous Peoples globally, of whom more than half (238.4 million) are women.[1] Discrimination and violence are recurrent phenomena in the lives of many Indigenous women and girls living in rural, remote and urban areas. The present general recommendation applies to Indigenous women and girls both inside and outside Indigenous territories.
2. The present general recommendation takes into account the voices of Indigenous women and girls as driving actors and leaders inside and outside their communities. It identifies and addresses different forms of intersectional discrimination faced by Indigenous women and girls and their key role as leaders, knowledge-bearers and transmitters of culture among their peoples, communities and families, as well as society as a whole. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has consistently identified patterns of discrimination faced by Indigenous women and girls in the exercise of their human rights,[2] and the factors that continue to exacerbate discrimination against them. Such discrimination is often intersectional and based on factors such as sex; gender; Indigenous origin, status or identity; race; ethnicity; disability; age; language; socioeconomic status; and HIV/AIDS status.[3]
[1] International Labour Organization (ILO), Implementing the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention No. 169: Towards an Inclusive, Sustainable and Just Future (Geneva, 2019), p. 13; and Department of Economic and Social Affairs, State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, vol. 5, Rights to Lands, Territories and Resources (United Nations publication, 2021), p. 119.
[2] See, for example, general recommendation No. 34 (2016) on the rights of rural women, paras. 14–15. For more discussion of the work of the Committee in the area of Indigenous women, see United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN‑Women) and Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, “Recomendaciones Generales y Observaciones Finales del Comité para la Eliminación de la Discriminación contra la Mujer sobre mujeres indígenas y/o afrodescendientes realizadas a Estados de América Latina” (Clayton, Panama, 2017).
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CEDAW RECOMMENDATION 39 ENGLISH (1)