March 7, 2025
This article was compiled by Papua Partners, through their own research, and through various interviews and conversations that they have held with Indigenous Papuan women over the past two years.
“Our country is suffering grievously under a colonial oppressor, which is busily exploiting the country’s rich mineral resources and extensive forests to serve its own interests whilst silencing anyone who tries to get in the way.”
Contextual Overview: The West Papuan conflict
The story of the Indigenous Peoples of West Papua – from the Indonesian-occupied half of the Island of New Guinea – is not an easy one to tell. It is a story of ongoing conflict, intergenerational trauma, surveillance and intimidation, which has been systematically covered up by the Indonesian State and its collaborators for over sixty years.
Over 500,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict – which largely revolves around access to West Papua’s rich natural resources – and 85,000 Indigenous Papuans remain displaced following armed clashes and security force raids that have destroyed their livelihoods, and driven them from their ancestral homes. Meanwhile, a state-sponsored resettlement or ‘transmigration’ programme has led Indigenous Papuans to become a minority in their own lands, which are now the most militarised region in Indonesia as a result of the Indonesia’s efforts to divide the region into additional provinces in a bid to contain access and control.
Unsurprisingly, gender discrimination and violence in West Papua mean that women have borne the brunt of this conflict. West Papuan women face severe inequality, and according to Papua Partners’ own research, over 96% of Papuan women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime – from their partners, wider family, community and the Indonesian State. As well as experiencing intergenerational cycles of trauma – including from forced displacement and sexual violence at the hands of the Indonesian military – many Papuan women are denied access to basic human rights such as education and healthcare; less than 10% of births in West Papua are attended by a professional. All too often, Women have no voice in decision-making, no political representation, and no power in relationships.
In spite of this, many Indigenous Papuan women are still working tirelessly to open the eyes of the world to their fate, and to defend their ancestral lands and resources from ruthless exploitation at the hands of their oppressors. In writing this article, we pay tribute to their bravery, and pledge our unwavering support to those who continually risk their safety and reputations in order to speak out – including through their contributions towards this article. Collectively, we hope to support them in delivering their vision for a peaceful West Papua that is free from all forms of violence, and premised upon the right to Indigenous self-determination.
Perspectives from our Indigenous Papuan partners:
Please note that responses to the questions in this article have been compiled from a number of different interviews with various contributors in discussion with Papua Partners – an international NGO that has been operating in West Papua since 2006. All identities have been kept anonymous for security reasons.
What are the unique gendered risks faced by women land and environmental defenders in your community and how do these risks intersect with other forms of discrimination?
West Papua is a very dangerous place to be Indigenous, especially if you’re a woman. Women are ostracised by Papuan society, and daily intimidation and discrimination is all that we have ever known. Many of us were born into violence, and the violence we experience in the home cannot be separated from the experience of state-led violence outside of it – including violence directed towards our lands, which we have always viewed as part of our family.
For example, when they [the Indonesian state] take gold from our mountains in Timika [the location of the Freeport gold mine], it feels to us as though they are raping our mother. We know we have to protect her, so that is what we will do, but it always results in some form of intimidation or other. There is a very famous example from the 70s of a mother from the Amungme tribe in Timika, who mobilised all other mothers from the region against mining at Freeport mine. The women went out to break the pipes of the gold mining companies, which dump over 200,000 tonnes of waste and poison into the rivers below the mine every single day. The woman was imprisoned up to 15 times, and one time she was put in a small container packed with human faeces.
These things are happening all the time, but no one hears about them, because it’s not safe for us to speak out. In some communities women are not allowed to speak in front of men, and even if we can speak out we’re accused of working against the State, and we face both direct and indirect intimidation as a result. Direct intimidation from security forces, and indirect intimidation in the form of surveillance.
For example, recently Mama X was being surveyed because she was unfairly accused of being a separatist [part of the West Papua National Liberation Army, the armed independence movement that exists throughout West Papua]. She faced social stigma at her church and from her community, and the Government blocked her access to aid – including cash and rice handouts. She was being brave and defending our lands from exploitation, but whenever a woman challenges power holders in the community it never ends well, partly because all of these forms of violence and discrimination are so interlinked.
Women are already silenced within Papuan society, so it is not too difficult for the Indonesian Government to erase us further. They place strict controls on freedom of press and movement in West Papua, which has prevented almost all international NGOs, Journalists and humanitarian organisations from entering and operating in the region. There are even regions within our own lands that are defined as conflict zones – for example in Intan Jaya near the Freeport mine – which we are not allowed to enter, and they often shut down the internet whenever conflicts are occurring to stop us from being able to communicate with each other.
These controls are why no one on the outside knows what is going on, and Indonesia is working very hard to keep it that way. They know that without West Papua Indonesia cannot continue to exist as a country, because they rely on our coal, trees, oil, gas, copper and gold deposits – the Freeport mine is Indonesia’s largest tax payer – to keep their country afloat. That is why they lied to everyone that we [Papuans] voted to be a part of Indonesia in 1969. They called it an ‘Act of Free Choice’, but it wasn’t. We didn’t vote to join them, and we never would have. And they have been doing everything they can to stop the world finding out about us ever since.
It is not a coincidence that wherever they [the State] find gold, there is also violence. They accuse people in remote villages near gold deposits – for example near Wabu bock – of having guns or raising the morning star flag [a banned symbol of Papuan independence]. And then they use that [accusations of terrorism] as an excuse to burn down and raid our villages, so that there is no one left to protest or give consent when they start taking our gold. What’s so stupid about this example is that they accused women in those villages of having guns – what woman in Papua would ever have access to a gun?
They use so many different tactics to silence us, including constant surveillance, disappearances, accusations of terrorism and extrajudicial killings. They even use tear gas to repress peaceful protests – like the ones that recently took place in Jayapura against their transmigration plan. And there is evidence that exists to prove this. A recent Permanent People’s Tribunal found Indonesia guilty of all four counts of State and Environmental violence levied against it, including: violent repression and racial discrimination against Indigenous Papuans, land grabs, extrajudicial killings, systematic human rights abuses, and collusion with national and foreign companies in regards to environmental degradation.
It is not an exaggeration to say that women suffer the most from this violence. They can and do beat and torture the men, but they do much worse to us, and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves because the military is all-powerful, especially now we have a new president who has a military background. We even get intimidated every time we go to our forest gardens, because they accuse us of liaising with terrorists who they think are hiding in the forests.
But whilst they think we can be silenced, they fail to recognise the role that women are playing in making changes happen across West Papua – in the church, within communities, and even as the main stewards of our lands. We know that women’s empowerment can be linked to a reduction in all forms of violence – poverty, land violence and physical violence – and that’s why we’re so determined to do what we can to make those changes happen.
It is very important for women – especially key women activists – to have a support system that they can rely on if they are going to speak out. Even if we do manage to contribute towards international discussions – for example through a recent visit to the UN in Geneva – we always get intimidated when we come home. This was the case for me in [the Indonesian capital of] Jakarta, when I was trying to record my responses to these questions. They [State forces at the airport] knew I had been abroad trying to build solidarity for the Indigenous Papuan cause, and so they tried to intimidate me on my way home to prevent me from doing it again.
The same thing happened with the 53rd session of the Permanent People’s Tribunal. Clearly Indonesia was not happy that some of us were giving evidence that they didn’t want the world to hear. They knew who was contributing to the tribunal from within Papua, so Police officers started visiting people’s homes after they had contributed, to try and intimidate us and prevent us from advocating for justice and human rights in the future. One man was even shot by an unknown perpetrator after giving evidence.
So we need to be protected and supported, but we also need international allies to speak out on our behalf, and to use their position and privilege to raise awareness about what is going on. For example, we need more funding for research so we can build an independent evidence base about the negative impacts of extractive activities on nature and human rights in West Papua. We also need other people to help us with our advocacy, and to campaign against the existence of extractive companies in our lands. Indigenous solidarity is very important to us, but we haven’t really been able to be a part of these conversations so far.
And other countries have a responsibility to get involved. 125 countries eat from Freeport mine and are profiting off the suppression of our people and the destruction of our lands. Additionally, countries like the UK train the Indonesian military, and are directly responsible for providing them with the weapons and tactics that they use against us. Indonesia might be trying to isolate us, but it is impossible to isolate the causes and impacts of what they are doing.
Fortunately, there are frameworks that exist that can help address the violence that we are facing. For example, we’ve been calling for an independent investigation into human rights abuses in West Papua for decades now. Indonesia publicly promised that they would issue this invitation to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2018, but they haven’t done anything about it, even though over 100 UN member states have called for this visit to happen. These are the sorts of causes you can support, because we need more voices and people and funding to help us raise awareness and to change things for the better. They can’t cover this up forever. We won’t let them, and the people reading this article shouldn’t let them either.
The reason we keep doing this work is because we have seen first hand the impacts that it can have. Women might be under-estimated in Papuan society, but we’re working to change that and it is already having an impact both domestically and internationally. For example, we run trauma workshops that provide safe spaces for women to talk through their experiences of violence and support each other through healing, which are so impactful when Papuan women rarely have safe spaces in which they can speak. We also run workshops on domestic violence with men and boys, because we know that we cannot change the root causes of violence and discrimination in West Papua without their cooperation.
For example, our educational workshops on healthy masculinity and how to be an active bystander – which we run in cooperation with the Church – have had a transformative impact on gender relationships, driving an almost 80% reduction in violence on women where they have been implemented. Our evaluation shows that churches and church leaders are more aware of issues surrounding Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), and more sensitive to the needs of women, whilst community cultural organisations are providing spaces for women to make decisions and take leadership positions.
As a direct result of this work, women across Papua are leading their communities, running businesses, building cooperative saving groups and even developing sustainable livelihood initiatives which protect our ancestral lands from exploitation. We’re even training women as paralegals so they can protect their communities from unlawful detention, and defend themselves against companies who want to take their lands for exploitation of natural resources.
There is so much more we can do to empower women defenders across West Papua and to protect our lands. West Papua is home to some of the largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforests and reef systems in the world, but sadly the world currently values gold, copper and sawit [Palm oil] over Indigenous peoples and our lands. That is what we are trying to change.
