UNPFII

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is an organization that deals with issues related to the indigenous people of the world.  In the world today there are many challenges that these people face such as the women of these nations feel they are not able to raise their voices and state opinions, climate change can be devastating to the people, and they feel like their way of life is being taken away from them. 

            Indigenous women’s today are the target for most of the discrimination. They are subjected to illiteracy, extreme poverty, trafficking, lack of access to ancestral land, violence, poor health care, and many more things. When different villages fight against one another, the women are exposed to most of the pain and suffering. This can become very hard on them and make it difficult to try to raise a family, and do everyday household activities. Today the UNPFII is trying to get more involvement and participation for women available.

            Indigenous people all have a close relationship with the environment. They are very concerned about the high altitude regions with glacier melts that are affecting many of their people. Because of the glaciers it is resulting in more water in the short term, but in the long run there will be less water as glaciers and snow cover shrink.  Indigenous people also depend a lot on the environment for hunting and trapping. They feel like the change in species available to them is becoming smaller, which means they have less variety.

            I think the main issue that these people are dealing with is the fact that their ways of life are being taken from them shortly. They feel like their culture is being taken from them, and they are no longer able to participate in their special cultural activities. I think they have a point, but I also think that they need to adapt to the things that are happening around them. Maintaining your culture is important, but I personally believe that they need to assimilate to other cultures.                        

            There are many issues that these people face. Climate change, women not being able to voice their opinion, and the feeling that their culture is being taken from them are only a few of the issues. I think the UNPFII means well and they are trying to help these people all around the world work through their problems. From what I understand, I don’t think they are enforcing these changes hard enough. If they truly want to make a difference they need to start taking action on these issues that they talk about, and make more progress so life for these people can change.