Batwa: Statement at the WGIP
Statement by Colette Mikila, PIDD-KIVU
I would like to take the floor for the development of the
Pygmie people in the DRC. I would like to congratulate you on your election
and tell you about situation of Indigenous Peoples in Africa. Pygmie women in
DRC face conditions. Indigenous Peoples women face special setting in Africa.
Their lifestyle is linked to the environment they have a duty to protect. They
can exercise that work and they must be allowed to without conflict. Conflicts
undermine the stability of indigenous women. Let’s think of rape and the
loss of dignity and the moral decline as well as inability for initiation rights.
The DRC is on fire. The war has made the cities into infernos and our areas
is where armed gangs kill and steal and rape due to economic designs they live.
Some of the hostilities have an ethnic component. We need strengthening of African
NGOs. The international community should stop these conflicts.