Continental Meeting of Indigenous Women of the Americas
July 11, 2007
Montreal, Canada

Presentation by Monica Aleman

Good morning! Today I am 31 years old and this is my first presentation.

Greetings to the Indigenous Peoples of this territory and thank you for having us here. Greetings to my co-panelists and greetings to my sisters, who have arrived from all corners of the world to be here.

It is an honor to be able to share my reflections with you.

But before I begin, I would like to say that we are here because we believe in this struggle, because our present and future generations depend on our actions.

I am going to make general comments and later to speak a little of the actions we are taking at the institutions that I am a part of!

This work has been a collection of the presentations of indigenous leaders in various regions and represents their analysis.

1. For the Indigenous Peoples, the topic of defining a development model that responds to their world vision is a challenge.

2. To the extent that there are advances in the recognition of our historical rights, with the re-conquest of territories, greater valorization of the ancestral knowledge and socio-cultural potentiality of our peoples makes it more urgent for us to count on our own development proposals.

3. Definition of development with an identity that arose from the Second Global Consultation on Indicators of Sovereignty and Food Security, celebrated in Bilwi, RAAN, Nicaragua in September 2007.

"Development with identity is the life project of the Indigenous Peoples based on their own logic and cosmovision. It is the natural growth of the Indigenous Peoples, of their flora and fauna, based on the principles of free determination regarding the lands, territories and natural resources. Also, it is respect for individual and collective rights. It is the well-being and security of our peoples."

4. In general terms, it has been suggested that some principles that ought to be taken into account while considering development from the viewpoint of the Indigenous Peoples are the following:

  • Those based on the right to free determination and the right of free, previous and informed consent, ensuring the full and effective participation of the Indigenous Peoples in all stages.
  • Those based on and inextricably related to the rights of the Indigenous Peoples and their lands, territories and natural resources.
  • Those based on the implementation of programs with a real character of association among Indigenous Peoples, key agencies of the UN, the States, NGOs, agencies, etc.
  • Those based on the recognition of common perspectives and concerns among all the Indigenous People and similarly, on respecting unique and distinct situations and needs of each Indigenous Person and each region.
  • Those based on the recognition that development is a fundamental and inherent human right of the Indigenous Peoples. Therefore, taking into account the fundamental characteristics of human rights, responding to its universality and indivisibility. Which is to say, all humans have the right to benefit from and to live with dignity and human quality regardless of whether they are men, women, indigenous or non-indigenous peoples. But it also signifies that in the case of the Indigenous Peoples, we would only be able to fully enjoy this right of our entire community, as peoples, enjoys it.

6. Those principles respond to the vision that our peoples have. It responds to the laws that govern the relations in our communities, just as the mission that each one of us, women and men, has—the mission of the family and community in interaction.

7. In the viewpoint of our communities, nothing exists by itself; rather, all the elements are interdependent, one's place and function defined by one's contribution to everything.

8. That vision has its principle source in the daily and diversified activities of all the members of the community that, in their management of nature and in their social agreement, they integrate collective representations and create guidelines of conduct in the different fields of intervention.

9. Indigenous women contribute a lot creatively to the development of our communities. However, although we normally work nearly 18 hours a day, sharing the reproductive work with the productive, and despite the fact that our contribution to the economy is significant, we are one of the most invisible sectors.

10. For example, the Data of the National Institute of Statistics and Census of 1999 shows that 19.7% of urban homes and 13% of rural homes of the North Atlantic of Nicaragua were receiving deliveries from abroad, which reflects the high rate of migration. In many cases, women leave to work outside of the country to sustain their families. Also, an internal migration is evident, resulting in many cases to problems of sexual exploitation of young women from communities that arrive to urban centers in search of work.

11. A study of URACCAN reveals that many boy and girl workers do not attend school. They only work and do jobs in their homes. They work on different activities that generate income for their household: domestic work, prostitution, traveling sellers. In the case of domestic work, the remunerations are between 200 and 500 cordobas monthly (10 and 30 dollars monthly).

12. There are girls even 12 years old working in prostitution. Though many consider that is not respectable work and represents a risk for them, there are cases in which the mother obliges the daughter to "inject herself in order not to become pregnant and to bring money home."

13. There are areas where the situation is even worse, as is the case of the women of Coco River. The situation of periodic deterioration generates a vicious cycle that impedes them from escaping poverty, which is manifested in the great migration towards Honduras, as well as sexual exploitation, maternal and child mortality.

14. The women point out that natural and environmental disasters amplify the economic crisis, the fact of not having goods, the lack of access to loans and the dependence of men. They consider their interest in loan programs to be very high.

15. The debates about the economy in indigenous contexts have identified four basic tendencies:

  1. To escape poverty, to increase survival
  2. To consolidate the traditional, self-sufficient, independent indigenous economy that resists the market
  3. Full and successful integration into the market and appropriation of its mechanisms
  4. To recreate a new, economic culture based on cooperation and collaboration, the recovery of identity and the culture of sustainability

16. Everything indicates, however, that the principal objective of the Indigenous Peoples is the recovery of the culture of sustainability, to progress towards their own processes of development in which the market plays an important role, but not the only role.

17. Another additional element that emerges from the analysis of proposals is related to the access and control of the fundamental, productive goods, which are:

  • Land or territory
  • Access to funds for financing
  • Systems of knowledge
  • Organization for work

18. Those debates highlight the need to motivate processes of training, information, understanding and contextualization to support the productive processes and the economy in indigenous contexts.

19. Similarly, it has been evident, the strategic importance that the processes of education play in the reproduction of the economy and the need to revitalize the role of women.

20. It has been demonstrated in the cases in which women assume a leadership and advisory role, education and cultural regain a significant role and it is accompanied by a strong impulse for survival strategies and successful economic management.

21. For women, it is a problem that the economic model does not include the daily experience of reproduction, or the fact that it places the care of human life as an individual responsibility for the women in families, detaching the State, the man and the enterprise.

22. It is also limiting the fact that the global chains of production are structured by the combination of the sexual and international division of labor, placing in the South production that consumes and destroys natural goods, detrimental to the natural and cultural heritage of the Indigenous Peoples.

23. It is also concerning the fact that the model has increased the commodification of the lives of women, especially in branches that generate sexual tourism, migration and the trafficking of women to the North, chained to domestic work, prostitution and the entertainment industry.

24. One form of confronting this is trying twice as hard to generate competitivity, and education is a fundamental measure for that. But the same ought to be separated from the valorization of the weight of the social capital of communities in enterprise management, since it is constituted by the successful positioning of communities in the market.

25. Raising awareness about the shared economy and the valorization of social capital are able to contribute to generating competitivity. It is required to define and put into effect the norms that regulate the relationships in the economy and the market depending on the affirmation of the culture of sustainability and community self-management.

26. In this context, the proposal of the Fund of Indigenous Women is inscribed. As part of the strategic work of the International Indigenous Women's Forum (4 areas of work: political lobbying, systematic formation, resource mobilization, institutional strengthening).

  • Alternative space of economic development for indigenous women, where we are at the front of institutions that mobilize and democratize access to financial resources.
  • Proposed model to make direct contribution to the organizational work of communities that it influences and to change the existing paradigm of the agenda of funding agencies in the work, keeping the form in which we relate with them.
  • Funding our own transformation… strengthening where we are to speed up and mobilize resources where to the extent that we are able to make it sustainable. Audre Lorde: The master will never fund his own revolution.

In order to be able to manage resources, however, we have to be clear about the following elements:

  • Clear map of the funding situation
  • Passion to do and show work
  • Clarity about the political relationship between the source of money and the issues that are receiving funds
  • To have technical knowledge for resource management

Our actions ought to be directed:

  • To create alliances
  • To open space of dialogue with the donor community
  • And to stop seeing ourselves as isolated organizations in the management of resources; the relationship among each of us has an impact on the relationship between us and the donors. It is important that we continue constructing this movement on the basis of democratizing access to resources.

Thank you.

Monica Aleman
Coordinator
International Indigenous Women's Forum
121 West, 27th Street, Room 301
New York, New York 10001, USA
E-mail: maleman@madre.org
Telephone: + 212 627 0444
Fax: + 212 675 3704
www.indigenouswomensforum.org