Indigenous Women in Latin America : An Effort for Human Rights

This article begins with a comprehensive background on the development of international bodies and conventions which recognized and developed mechanisms for enforcing Indigenous human rights. It then focuses on discrimination towards Indigenous women and their fight for individual rights which are often seen to conflict with the interests of the Indigenous community more generally. While there has been a general recognition of Indigenous women’s issues and rights at an international level there has not been enough emphasis on specific subsets of women. This article analyzes the experiences of Indigenous women in several regions, including Belize, Brazil, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela. The author provides suggestions for how domestic leaders can address human rights violations of Indigenous women at a national level.