New Report - The first ever United Nations study on World's indigenous peoples
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 today, stressing 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 per cent 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 per cent 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 in a news release.
Although indigenous peoples make up only 5 per cent of the global population, they constitute around one third of the world’s 900 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. (...)
The article:
http://www.unpo.org/content/view/10586/83/
The Report:
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/SOWIP_web.pdf
In “Collasso” di Jared Diamond sono magistralmente illustrati esempi di società del passato che si sono autodistrutte per totale mancanza di spirito profetico, cioè della capacità di lasciarsi interrogare dai segni del tempo che chiedono la profonda revisione di uno stile di vita acquisito.
