WASHINGTON -- Tens of millions of indigenous children remain among the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in the world today, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Innocenti Research Center of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Governments and aid agencies must do a better job of helping these children overcome the many challenges and prejudices that surround them, said the report, "Ensuring the Rights of Indigenous Children."

"When indigenous children are allowed to live in peace and security and free from discrimination, they have an enormous potential to contribute not only to their own communities, but to national and global society as well," said UNICEF's executive director, Carol Bellamy.

"If we are to achieve goals such as poverty reduction, education for all and an end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we must put all children--especially the most vulnerable children such as those in indigenous communities--at the center of our efforts," she added.

Over 300 million people--or roughly five percent of the global population--are members of indigenous groups. They live in 70 countries and speak around three quarters of the world's 5,000 languages.

According to UNICEF's statistics, indigenous children generally have lower vaccination rates and higher mortality rates, compared to their non-indigenous peers. They also have lower rates of school enrollment and higher drop-out rates and are at greater risk than non-indigenous children for human trafficking, sexual and labor exploitation, and recruitment as child soldiers.

Infant, child, and maternal mortality rates among indigenous people are significantly greater than among non-indigenous groups because governments often fail to offer social services, such as schools and health clinics, or to adapt them to the culture of indigenous groups.

Moreover, the rate at which indigenous children are registered at birth--often the essential first step to obtaining a legal status--is substantially below those of non-indigenous children, due in part to the geographical isolation in which many indigenous groups live.

Indigenous communities often live under severe cultural and social stress, according to the report. Lack of opportunity, discrimination, inadequate social support, loss of land, and pressure to integrate into the dominant culture all contribute to low self-esteem and loss of identity that help explain higher rates of depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide.

About half of the world's indigenous people live in Asia; most of the rest live in Latin America, although indigenous people live in every continent of the world.

Ensuring the rights of indigenous children can best be accomplished, according to the report, by building on the inherent strengths of their communities. These include spirituality, cultural identity, a strong bond with the land, a specific history and collective memory, and kinship. Families, elders, and community leaders can play an important role in helping children understand and take pride in these special resources.

The report suggests four strategic areas in which governments should provide support on behalf of indigenous children, and offers examples of innovative programs undertaken in some countries.

In health and nutrition, they should develop initiatives that blend and balance ''traditional'' and ''modern medicine;'' train indigenous individuals as health workers and encourage work with traditional healers; and ensure land tenure in order to promote the production of traditional food supplies.

In education, government should offer children the chance to learn in their first language while, at the same time, progressively mastering the country's official language; provide more opportunities for pre-school education; and make curriculum as relevant as possible to the indigenous community by including, for example, elders in the classroom or ensuring that class schedules are compatible with the community's daily or seasonal rhythms.

In Siberia, for example, the local government set up a school for the migratory Nenet people that moves with them as they herd reindeer across the tundra from east to west and back again.

Mexico and Thailand have also developed programs to ensure that teachers can travel to remote indigenous communities to hold classes, rather than requiring children to travel to towns or cities for their education.

In recent years the governments of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe have introduced mother-tongue instruction in primary schools, while Vietnam has developed bilingual materials for ethnic minorities with the help of UNICEF and the World Bank .

To provide greater protection and support for children, governments should build on the strengths of indigenous families and kinship networks; pay greater attention to indigenous children and youth living in urban or suburban areas; take special measures to prevent child labor; and provide interpreters and other special services to indigenous children who are caught up in the judicial system.

In Nepal, for example, the government in recent years has moved aggressively against the Kamaiya system, a form of debt bondage, under which many indigenous Tharu children were forced to work as domestics.

Finally, government should take steps to overcome obstacles to birth registration and other formalities that lead to full citizen participation; present information to indigenous children in their own language; and ensure an active voice for indigenous children and youth in media, particularly radio.

UNICEF defines an indigenous population in four different ways: the group should have priority in time with respect to the occupation and use of a specific area of land; and it must have perpetuated its cultural distinctiveness, often by retaining its language, social organization, religion, spiritual values, laws, and institutions.

In addition, the group must identify itself as different and itself be recognized as distinct by state authorities or other groups; and it must have undergone an experience of subjugation, marginalization, dispossession, exclusion or discrimination at the hands of the dominant society, whether or not those conditions persist.

©2004 OneWorld.net

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