A/HRC/51/28 76. Women’s cultural practices are also criminalized. The long-term effects of colonization have created obstacles for indigenous women to practice midwifery today. Stateregistered health-care professionals often do not respect indigenous midwives, who therefore risk being criminalized and mistreated when they bring women to hospital with birth complications and being held responsible for maternal deaths. Misappropriation of indigenous women’s knowledge E. 77. Indigenous women lack the legal protection for their scientific and technical knowledge that is granted to other forms of intellectual property in much of the world. 70 In some cases, western scientists have studied indigenous knowledge of plants and appropriated that knowledge without recognition or remuneration for the indigenous owners. That misappropriation of knowledge has led to distrust among indigenous peoples, who may be reluctant to share knowledge as they lack intellectual property protection. Furthermore, intellectual property protection does not take into account the collective dimension of indigenous knowledge or the fact that the knowledge may be sensitive and not to be shared publicly.71 78. In the absence of legal recognition, indigenous knowledge is often considered to be in the public domain to be utilized, commodified, commercialized, exploited and benefited from through appropriation, reproduction and imitation, without the free prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned. Even where legal protections exist through the intellectual property regime, the framework is not adequate, as the collective dimension of indigenous authorship and the object of protection fail to be taken into account, in addition to the failure to recognize indigenous systems of knowledge during the patenting process. In Mexico, women are engaged in rearing livestock and selling grocery and food products such as nixtamal, but their knowledge has been appropriated for the economic benefit of others.72 79. Indigenous art and culture has been exploited for tourism, romanticizing sacred indigenous practices and ceremonies. The selling of artisanal products in a competitive market risks loss of identity and cultural practices, where mass production of imitation products occur. For example, in Guatemala, Mayan clothing has been commercially exploited by companies and individual designers alike.73 80. In other cases, pharmaceutical or agricultural companies have taken indigenous scientific knowledge and marketed it without permission or with no recognition given to the indigenous owners. For example, indigenous knowledge of stevia has been misappropriated and exploited through widespread commercialization, misleading marketing and synthetic biology. The Guarani Pai Tavytera people of Paraguay and the Guarani-Kaiowa people of Brazil have a sacred relationship with stevia, whose sweetening properties they have been aware of since time immemorial. They have denounced the misappropriation of indigenous knowledge by multinational companies without consultation or compensation as well as the loss of territories, biodiversity and the knowledge that resulted from its harvesting. 74 81. The dominance of commercial seed companies and their marketing strategies threatens indigenous women’s knowledge of old local seed varieties and indigenous practices of communal seed banks for non-profit sharing. VII. Best practices led by indigenous peoples 82. Indigenous women are creating environments conducive to the preservation, development, use and transmission of their knowledge when they have a voice in indigenous governance and when they are supported through broader political involvement that promotes 70 71 72 73 74 16 Submission by the Government of Guatemala, p. 6. See E/C.19/2007/10. Submission by the Government of Mexico, pp. 5 and 7. Submission by the Movimiento Nacional de Tejedoras Mayas de Guatemala. Submission by the Guarani Pai Tavytera people of Paraguay and the Guarani-Kaiowa people of Brazil.