June 2004 Update

Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
The Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues met for its third session at the United Nations headquarters in New York from 10-21 May 2004 to focus on the session's special theme of "Indigenous Women." Some 1500 participants from over 500 indigenous groups participated in the session. Among them, thanks to the sponsorship of UNANIMA International, were two indigenous women, Valerie Henderson, a youth worker from Rossbrook House (co-worker of Sr. Lesley Sacouman) and a Cree aboriginal woman, and Therese Kakesa-Beya, a Luba youth from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They shared their concerns as indigenous girls in the opening-day panel organized by the working group on girls - "Indigenous Girls Speak Out." Therese spoke very simply of the challenges she faced in the urban culture of Kinshasa as a young tribal woman mentioning the conflicts that occur because of the different values of matriarchal and patriarchal societies in Congo . Val told a moving story of growing up as an aboriginal girl. It was a composite of her own experiences and those of her friends. At the end of the session a person from the audience asked: "What do you think is the greatest problem for aboriginal girls in your setting?" Val's response - "Prostitution." This is a strong confirmation of UNANIMA International's decision to make working against trafficking in women and girl's its action focus.

Staff Expansion:
Thanks to the CCVs, we at UNANIMA International will have a volunteer staff person working in our office beginning at the end of June. We welcome Ana María Martinez de Luco, CCV. Ana Maria will assist in the needs of UI while she is here in the United States . She will help in following our issues, participating in working groups, and in the analysis of the trafficking survey completed earlier this spring.

CEDAW
Plans continue to bring the expertise of our women working in the Dominican Republic and Equatorial Guinea to the CEDAW session this July. Gina Pultorek, a volunteer with the SHCJs, in the Dominican Republic, describes the group preparing a written intervention: "We are a community of eight - three Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus and five lay volunteers living and working in an SHCJ mission located in Santo Domingo . We work in a "batey" - popularly described as a Haitian workers' settlement camp. We care about CEDAW because our life is centered in the batey…and we find ourselves confronting situations that can leave us feeling helpless or defeated. The state of women and girls in the batey is one of these situations."

We will give more details on the RJM Sister Yudith Pereira and the experience of Equatorial Guinea in our next update.

Pax Christi International Council and the Visit to Colombia
At the invitation of Pax Christi International, Catherine participated in their International Council in New Jersey , 18-23 May 2004. She worked especially with those involved in work in Colombia , the Human Rights Commission and the Latin America Working Group. At the moment the final fact-finding and advocacy mission to the conflictive region of Colombia is scheduled for 22 July- 2 August 2004 . Catherine is the rapporteur for this mission.

To read the final Pax Christi International declaration on the "war against terrorism", please connect with their web site: http://www.paxchristi.net

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