Indigenous and tribal communities are around three times more likely to face extreme poverty than others with women “consistently at the bottom of all social and economic indicators”,- UN labour experts said on Monday.
Highlighting new data showing that disproportionate numbers of indigenous people live on less than $1.90 a day – 18.2 per cent versus 6.8 per cent of non-indigenous people - the International Labour Organization (ILO) insisted that millions are being held back by a “spectre of poverty”.
The problem warrants global attention because this at-risk population is significantly larger than was previously thought, ILO insists.
According to the UN organization, there are more than 476 million indigenous people globally, the majority of whom live in relatively prosperous countries.