Aili Keskitalo

Aili Keskitalo (born 29 October 1968) is a Norwegian Sami politician representing Norwegian Sámi Association (NSR), and sami

the fifth and current president of the Sami Parliament of Norway, incumbent since 16 October 2013.

Prior to her current presidency, she served as president of the Sami Parliament of Norway in 2005, the third in its history and the first female President of any Sami Parliament. She stepped down in September 2007. The collapse of her coalition made way for the first ever non-NSR presidency, led by Egil Olli from the Norwegian Labour Party.

She has a Master in Public Administration from Copenhagen Business School, in which she compared the school systems in Norway and Greenland

Keskitalo was the first Sámi President whose mother tongue was not Sámi but norwegian. However, she speaks Northern Sami fluently.

References

Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples are those groups protected in international or national legislation as having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory, their cultural and historical distinctiveness from other populations. The legislation is based on the conclusion that certain indigenous people are vulnerable to exploitation, marginalization and oppression by nation states formed from colonising populations or by politically dominant, different ethnic groups.

A special set of political rights in accordance with international law have been set forth by international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. The United Nations has issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to guide member-state national policies to collective rights of indigenous people—such as culture, identity, language, and access to employment, health, education, and natural resources. Estimates put the total population of indigenous peoples from 220 million to 350 million.