UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) — The world\’s 370 million indigenous peoples suffer from disproportionately, often exponentially, higher rates of poverty, health problems, crime and human rights abuses, the first ever United Nations study on the issue reported here Thursday.
The report stressed that self-determination and land rights are vital for their survival. Startling figures contained in The State of the World\’s Indigenous Peoples include:
In the United States, a Native American is 600 times more likely to contract tuberculosis and 62 percent more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
In Australia, an indigenous child can expect to die 20 years earlier than his non-native compatriot. The life expectancy gap is also 20 years in Nepal, while in Guatemala it is 13 years and in New Zealand it is 11.
In parts of Ecuador, indigenous people have 30 times greater risk of throat cancer than the national average.
Worldwide, more than 50 percent of indigenous adults suffer from Type 2 diabetes — a number predicted to rise.
\”Every day, indigenous communities all over the world face issues of violence and brutality, continuing assimilation policies, dispossession of land, marginalization, forced removal or relocation, denial of land rights, impacts of large-scale development, abuses by military forces and a host of other abuses,\” the report\’s authors said at a news release here.
Although indigenous peoples make up only 5 percent of the global population, they constitute around one third of the world\’s900 million extremely poor rural people. In both developed and developing countries, poor nutrition, limited access to care, lack of resources crucial to maintaining health and well-being and contamination of natural resources are all contributing factors to the terrible state of indigenous health worldwide.
At the report\’s launch at the UN Headquarters in New York, UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Chairperson Vicki Tauli-Corpuz said its value would be far-reaching because it comprises for the first time very clearly aggregated data.
\”We believe this is going to be crucial for Governments and for the UN to address more seriously and comprehensively the issues of indigenous people,\” she told the news conference. \”It\’s very daring and bold in a sense because it does identify countries and the situation of indigenous peoples in various countries both in the developed world as well as in the developing world.\”
Indigenous peoples experience disproportionately high levels of maternal and infant mortality, malnutrition, cardiovascular illnesses, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis (TB), while suicide rates, particularly among youth, are considerably higher in many countries, for example up to 11 times the national average for the Inuit in Canada. The Inuit TB rate is over 150 times higher.
