State of the World’s Indigenous People
Source: United Nations
Indigenous peoples contribute extensibly to humanity’s cultural
diversity, enriching it withmore than two thirds of its languages and
an extrordinary amount of its traditional knowledge.
There are over 370 million indigenous people in some 90 countries,
living in all regions of the world. The situation of indigenous peoples
in many parts of the world is critical today.
Poverty rates are
significantly higher among indigenous peoples compared to other groups.
While they constitute 5 per cent of the world’s population, they are 15
per cent of the world’s poor. Most indicators of well-being show that
indigenous peoples suffer disproportinately compared to non-indigenous
peoples.
Indigenous peoples face systemic discrimination and exclusion
from political and economic power; they continue to be over-represented
among the poorest, the illiterate, the destitute; they are displaced by
wars and environmental disasters; indigenous peoples are dispossessed
of their ancestral lands and deprived of their resources for survival,
both physical and cultural; they are even robbed of their very right to
life.
In more modern versions of market exploitation, indigenous peoples
see their traditional knowledge and cultural expressions marketed and
patented without their consent or participation.
Of the some 7,000 languages today, it is estimated that more than
4,000 are spoken by indigenous peoples. Language specialists predict
that up to 90 per cent of the world’s languages are likely to become
extinct or threatened with extinction by the end of the century.
Full Report (PDF; 2.8 MB)
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