E/2004/43 E/C.19/2004/23 Annex I Chairperson’s summary of the high-level panel and dialogue on indigenous women I. Introduction 1. The composition of the panel included Njuma Ekundanayo, Vice-Chair of the Permanent Forum with the portfolio on gender, Kyung-wha Kang, Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, Noeli Pocaterra, Second Vice-President, National Assembly of Venezuela, and Stella Tamang, former Chairperson of the Indigenous Women’s Caucus. The panel was chaired by the Chairperson of the Forum, Ole Henrik Magga, who also made a statement. After the introductory statements by the panellists, the Permanent Forum heard the reports of the regional indigenous women’s conferences held in preparation of the Forum’s third session. A dialogue was held with Forum members and observers from Member States, United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, indigenous peoples’ organizations and non-governmental organizations. II. Contextualizing indigenous women’s issues 2. Indigenous women, numbering more than 150 million throughout the world today, have been often invisible to international human rights, humanitarian and development institutions due to their marginalization and discrimination within their countries. However, the human rights, environmental and women’s movements, supported by major international initiatives, are beginning to focus their attention on the human rights and special needs and concerns of indigenous women. 3. Despite their great cultural and regional diversity, indigenous women are facing similar challenges today, such as social dislocation due to political conflicts and migration, poverty and underdevelopment due to environmental degradation and lack of access to public resources, and marginalization due to their cultural difference and minority status within States. 4. While specific local contexts vary, broader unifying themes and concerns, rooted in the common experience of colonization, globalization and nationalism, have emerged. Unified in their struggle for cultural survival, indigenous women have now been placed on the agenda of the international community as one of the “emerging key issues”, and they are responding by organizing themselves on the international, regional, national and local levels. III. Challenges 5. While major anti-poverty campaigns have been launched by international agencies, the social and economic conditions for many indigenous communities in different parts of the world have worsened. Economic globalization can play a major role in the deterioration of the natural environment and subsistence-based food security, and has contributed to the out-migration of indigenous women to urban centres, where they are no longer under the protection of traditional law and become particularly vulnerable to forced labour, trafficking and prostitution. 43