On December 10th, 2018, the En Terre Indigène association organized an international conference at Inalco in Paris for the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Human Rights Declaration for men, women and children with the support of the CHANEL foundation for promoting women and young girls.
It was also the launch of the “Voices of indigenous women” site http://femmesautochtones.com that presents portraits of exemplary women whose ways of being, acting and thinking about the world are a laboratory of ideas for tomorrow.
This day at Inalco took place in two parts: a conference and workshops.
The morning conference held at 11:30 AM in the Auditorium, organized in a radio show format and hosted by Anne Pastor, presented the paths of four indigenous women.
-Fanny Wylde .Her grandfather gave her a desire to defend her people. Born in Pikogan, 1000 kilometers from Montreal in Algonquin territory, Fanny Wylde left her community at age 12 following his advice. Victim of a rape at 16 and then a young mother, she became the first female indigenous lawyer in Quebec. She is proud to be able to support indigenous people ignored by Canadian society until the recent revelations about Amerindian boarding schools and women’s assassinations.
Today Fanny Wylde is part of the national investigative commission for indigenous women who have disappeared or been assassinated. She participates as much for being a woman as for being an indigenous person .
-Fara Caillard. In 1999, with the creation of the Union of Citizen Women of New Caledonia, the emancipation of women became a societal project. In 2000, the nonprofit founded the Observatory of the Condition of Women and has, ever since, taken part in the yearly worldwide Women’s March, a movement that fights all discrimination against women. The nonprofit has known great victories, mobilizing its troops to help establish gender equality in politics, but also fighting for the legalization of abortion. It has initiated a reform project that was filed with Congress, striving to compensate the victims of customary status and promote the rights of kanak women. Today, as she takes part in the debates over violence against women, Françoise Caillard knows that nothing can ever be taken for granted.
-Fatima Tabaarmant : with over 160 poems and counting, Fatima Tabaamrant’s raïssa manages to shatter taboos and defend the Amazigh identity. A member of parliament from 2011 to 2016, she boldly addressed the Moroccan congress in Tamazight, on the topic of teaching the language in Moroccan schools. But her commitment reaches beyond the question of identity. The raïssa challenges the state over youth unemployment, corruption and the place of women in society. Every concert is an event, a political and artistic meeting, during which Fatima Tabaamrant never stops clamoring for freedom and women’s rights.
– Khadija Arouhal Tililly. : Originally from the southern Morocco village of Mirleft, Khadija Aroujhal traces her commitment to the emancipation of women to something that was torn away from her: a poem she wrote in Tifinagh (the Amazigh alphabet), when she was in middle school. Since then, she has decided to only ever write in Tifinagh, and to defend her identity. This lively woman follows in the footsteps of Fatima Tabaamrant. In her sometimes subversive poetry, she broaches taboo subjects such as love, illegal immigration, the condition of women, and religion. She never ceases to speak up for women’s freedom, regardless of criticism directed at her by islamists.
This conference can be seen at https://vimeo.com/306658103
Workshop afternoon
Three afternoon workshops, held from 2:30 to 5:30 PM, were proposed in the presence of the women invited with, for each, a work and reflection axis based on the themes of their commitments. The public was invited to these workshops that included discussions and shared experiences.
The first, lead by Fatima Tabaamrant, Khadija Arouhal and Madame Abrous of Inalco, addressed Amazigh poetry and women’s role in transmitting culture.
workshop 1: https://youtu.be/LaqWdryHDRA
The second, lead by Fara Caillard and Sarah Mohamed Gaillard from Inalco, addressed the place of Kanak women in New Caledonia, between tradition and modernity.
workshop 2: https://youtu.be/xZcnt_xDikE
The third was lead by Fanny Wylde and doctoral student Alice Lefilleul on the question of violence against and murders of women.
workshop 3: https://youtu.be/WMadmdVL1PA
This day at Inalco was a key moment for the project. It helped create a link between different publics – the general public, specialists on the questions addressed (research professors, ethnologists, anthropologists), feminist associations, students, … on the problems our world today is confronted with and ways to advance together on questions in our modern societies.
