As we move further into the twenty-first century and towards a new era for the development agenda, the global political agenda is beginning to recognize the unequal status of Indigenous peoples with respect to the right to health, and, in particular, how gender inequalities and marginalisation and discrimination on the basis of ethnic identity (including institutional discrimination) interact to create a yet more negative outlook for Indigenous women in terms of their health status, the social determinants of health, and access to quality health care.
The 2030 Agenda thus represents a crucial opportunity for advancing the normative framework and commitments for Indigenous women´s health. This presentation will outline the obstacles faced, and potential offered, by the 2030 Agenda development framework for advancing the normative framework and commitments for Indigenous women´s health, with particular reference to the Latin American region.
An overview of the status of Indigenous women’s health in the region will be presented, as well as the articulation between related health goals for Indigenous women with more generalised goals related to health, gender equality and women’s empowerment within the 2030 Agenda. It will address some of the complexities of addressing Indigenous women’s health issues in the implementation of the new framework in a meaningful way, in particular in terms of adequately dealing with the potentially conflicting nature of community, cultural and individual human, and, particularly, women’s rights in relation to health. The potential offered by attention to the intersections between the goals, the related inter-sectoral action this implies, and the particular importance of the goal related to means of implementation, and particularly disaggregated data, for ensuring accountability will also be discussed.