Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Parallel ...

5. Methods: consultation and feedback fromAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander womenand non-government organisations.YWCA Australia, Koorie Women Mean Business and the Indigenous Law Centre,University of New South Wales have conducted consultations and prepared thisindependent parallel report for the CEDAW Committee's consideration. An independentAdvisory Group of eminent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women was alsoconstituted to support this work.We have worked hard to ensure that a diverse range of Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander women could contribute to this report and that the voices of community womencould be heard.This report builds on the extensive consultations that took place before our last report in2005. This time, we held 11 forums for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women andtheir community organisations. These forums looked at how the United Nations couldwork for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and identified the most importanthuman rights issues for our women. The forums were held in February and March 2009in Sydney, Melbourne, Darwin, Alice Springs, Canberra, Perth, Broome, Townsville,Brisbane, Adelaide, Broken Hill and Bourke. These places include State capital citiesand some important regional centres.Two additional consultations specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanderwomen were held in partnership with the Diplomacy Training Program’s ‘IndigenousYouth, Human Rights and Advocacy Program’, and in collaboration with Oxfam’s‘Straight Talk’ Indigenous women’s advocacy program. Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander women also took part in consultation sessions for the Australian NGO Reporton the Implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms ofDiscrimination against Women (CEDAW) 2009 (Australian NGO Report).6. Terms used in this reportIn this report, we use the terms 'Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander woman' or'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women'. We use these terms rather than'Indigenous woman' or 'Indigenous women' as they more accurately reflect our culturalheritage.The terms 'Aboriginal' or 'Torres Strait Islander' may be used as slightly more specificterms, such as when talking about a particular community.Terms such as 'Indigenous' and 'Aboriginal' may used in quotes or where they wereused in a particular document, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights ofIndigenous Peoples.13