Global Roundup: Maori March for Rights, Displaced Lebanese Women Worry About Periods, Korean Students vs Sexual Assault, Esports Event Cancelled After Anti-Abortion Comment, Female Artists vs Ageism

Maori MP Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke, who is also the youngest MP in the New Zealand Parliament, ripping up a copy of the Indigenous Treaty Bill as she performs a Haka to disrupt proceedings

A fight for Maori rights drew 42,000 protesters to the New Zealand Parliament in the capital Wellington on Tuesday.

A nine-day-long hikoi, or peaceful march – a tradition of the Maori– was undertaken in protest against a bill that seeks to reinterpret the country’s 184-year-old founding Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed between British colonisers and the Indigenous Maori people.

Some had also been peacefully demonstrating outside the Parliament building for nine days before the protest concluded on Tuesday.

On November 14, the controversial Treaty Principles Bill was introduced in Parliament for a preliminary vote. Maori parliamentarians staged a haka (a Maori ceremonial dance) to disrupt the vote, temporarily halting parliamentary proceedings.

Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who is also the youngest lawmaker in the New Zealand Parliament, ripped up a copy of the bill as she stood to lead the haka in parliament. Members from her party, Te Pāti Māori, other parties and some in the public gallery joined in. Video of the haka has since gone viral.

The protesters who had been marching for days arrived to oppose the law but for many, it was about something more: a celebration of a resurging Indigenous language and identity that colonization had once almost destroyed.

Just fighting for the rights that our tūpuna, our ancestors, fought for. We're fighting for our tamariki (children), for our mokopuna (grandchildren), so they can have what we haven't been able to have. -Shanell Bob

For many, the turnout reflected growing solidarity on Indigenous rights from non-Māori. At bus stops during the usual morning commute, people of all ages and races waited with Māori sovereignty flags. Some local schools said they would not register students as absent. The city's mayor joined the protest.

The bill that marchers were opposing is unpopular and unlikely to become law. But opposition to it has exploded, which marchers said indicated rising knowledge of the Treaty of Waitangi's promises to Māori among New Zealanders — and a small but vocal backlash from those who are angered by the attempts of courts and lawmakers to keep them.

Māori marching for their rights as outlined in the treaty is not new. But the crowds were larger than at treaty marches before and mood was changed, Indigenous people said.

It's different to when I was a child. We're stronger now, our tamariki are stronger now, they know who they are, they're proud of who they are. -Shanell Bob

New Zealand has veered sharply to the right since Jacinda Ardern stepped down as prime minister. The new government — a coalition of the main center-right party and two smaller, more populist ones — has reversed many of her policies and has challenged the rights and the prominence of indigenous Maori culture and language in public life

“This is nothing more than us having to defend that we exist,” Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, the co-leader of the Te Pāti Māori party, said before the protesters reached Wellington, the capital.