The present report is submitted to the Human Rights Council by the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples pursuant to his mandate under Council resolution 60/4. In the report, the Special Rapporteur reviews how States have addressed violations of the sexual and reproductive health and rights of Indigenous women and girls in the almost 20 years since the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted.
Upholding the sexual and reproductive health and rights of Indigenous women is essential to the survival, continuity and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous women are life-givers, knowledge holders, caregivers and transmitters of language, culture and identity. As a result, their bodies, reproductive capacities, family relationships and social roles have often been targeted in processes of territorial expansion, settler colonialism, colonization, racial domination and nation-building. Control over Indigenous women and their reproductive lives has frequently served as a means of asserting power over Indigenous Peoples, their lands, territories, resources and futures.
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