Environment, Health and Well-Being of Indigenous Peoples

Whereas Indigenous peoples face enormous challenges to reach an acceptable state of well-being, their demands regarding a right to health are little supported, heard and implemented (REF), including by international organizations responsible for health issues.

That is what has been moving Mariam towards her strong engagement in promoting the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples as they need it, that is embedding in their own wishes and apprehension of “health” / “wellbeing”.

In the UNPFII, she has been advocating for the right to health to be part of the continuous work of the forum. She indefatigably raises the necessity to develop indicators relevant for Indigenous peoples for the improvement of their well-being and to respect the UNDRIP standards on the ground, in particular regarding survival, dignity and well-being of Indigenous peoples. For example, in 2017, she underlined the need to develop indicators adapted to Indigenous peoples, as well as for the review of the SDG # 3.

As a Chair of the UNPFII, she innovated by strongly working for bringing up Indigenous health into the agendas of the Geneva based International Health organizations, like WHO-TB Program and UNAIDS. She insisted on meeting with heads of these institutions Dr Tedros, Dr Teresa Kasaeva and Michel Sidibé.

She also published a Study focusing on tuberculosis and Indigenous peoples for the 18^th session of the UNPFII to raise awareness of the importance of this disease among indigenous peoples and its interlinkage with socio-economic inequal conditions in which Indigenous peoples are often due to colonization processes and continuous discriminatory practice.

She is regularly involved in the work of FAO’s Indigenous branch. For example, during the 44^th session of the Committee on World Food Security in October 2017, she met with FAO staff members from the Inter Departmental Working Group of Indigenous Peoples to better understand their mandate as well as how to efficiently engage with the Committee on Food Security and other relevant instances in order to better integrate Indigenous peoples’ preoccupations and Indigenous peoples’ assets in the committee’s report. She then spoke on several occasions during the session to underline the importance of Indigenous peoples’ knowledge and their transmission and highlighted the urgent need to preserve and promote Indigenous food systems and the role of the latter in nutrition, well-being, health, as well for the food security. She gave specific examples of traditional medicines made from food ingredients like itaɣartaɣaren, a medicine she learned from her grandmother made mainly from grounded millet, white cumin, asesli (a traditionally curdled milk) which are food products used in her community to heal dehydration and amaɣres (an occasional nutritional squat). In the continuity of this first engagement, she has been continuously involved with FAO, for example in the work of FAO regarding the role of Indigenous women in agriculture.

She especially focuses on sexual health and reproductive rights. In 2014, she participated to the Expert General Meeting on “Sexual health and reproductive rights: articles 21, 22 (1), 23 and 24 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”.

She was also one of the keynote speakers at the International Indigenous Pre-conference on HIV & AIDS organized by the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network (CAAN) in Amsterdam in 2018. She joined daily conversation at AIDS 2018 at in the Indigenous Peoples Networking Zone sharing how the UNPFII can be a catalyst for action in the global HIV response and ways for strengthening Indigenous peoples’ leadership in addressing their health issues. Since 2020 she joined the International Indigenous Working Group on HIV and Aids as a leader.

Environment, Health and Well-Being of Indigenous Peoples

Health and well-being in the Tuareg culture can be apprehended through the concept of “Ărramăt”, for which animal, human and environment are not independent from one another. Thus, Mariam’s involvement in forums related to the environment contributes to her work towards improving the health and wellbeing of all, and in particular of Indigenous peoples. She participated in the Meeting on the Global Pact for the Environment, organized by Colombia University in September 2017 and the 9th Trondheim Conference on Biodiversity on 2-5 July 2019. In these gatherings, Mariam took the opportunity to bring Indigenous aspirations in processes as important as the right to a healthy environment and to the innovations and transformations regarding the preservation and protection of biodiversity.

On the request of a group of Indigenous women, she presented the impacts of toxic wastes on Indigenous girls and women’s health, the existing legal frameworks that enable to deal with these wastes, as well as their limitations to take into account the specific situation of certain Indigenous territories where these toxic substances are in quantities in higher amounts that the limitations defined by international instruments. Her advocacy work contributed to alert Baskut Tuncak, Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, who get involved, including by recognizing the issues at stake and calling member States to implement the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions before the UNFPII.

During the CUMIPAZ 2017 on “Science for the Preservation of the Life of the Mother Earth and the Human Being” in Panama, Mariam introduced her people’s, the Kel Tamasheq, traditional medicine and the opportunities it represents for her people’s health and well-being at the panel – “Scientific and ancestral contributions for the preservation of the life of the human being” – based on a research she conducted in 2010 for her master thesis

In 2020, she was appointed as an Indigenous expert for the evaluation of FAO’s support to climate action (SDG 13) and the implementation of the FAO Strategy on Climate Change (2017).