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.
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Just as we should deplore the role of religious extremism in terrorist acts, we must reject extremist intolerance and antipathy towards sexual minorities, argues Audrey Mbugua. Rather than 'surrender your brain' to hate-mongering religious leaders and misplaced fear, Mbugua stresses, we must focus on promoting peace and understanding.
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Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa has launched a new handbook for reporters to support sustained media coverage of gender-based violence beyond 16 Days of No Violence Against Women and Children. The toolkit looks at various issues related to gender-based violence including religious and harmful traditional practices, domestic violence, sexual violence, femicide, sex work and trafficking, sexual harassment, armed conflicts, HIV and AIDS, child abuse, the role of men, the criminal justice system, as well as the costs of gender-based violence.
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The debate over women's bodies in legislatures across the country exhibits the ever-widening chasm between politics and the lives of ordinary Mexicans. Despite the loud political rhetoric, the real losers will not be the politicians. Instead it will be the hundreds of thousands of unheard women who put themselves at risk as they bravely make their own choices about their own lives.
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In 2010, the World Social Forum will celebrate the 10 years of its process. To mark this date the WSF will hold multiple activities throughout the world year-round. To give the WSF process during 2010 a common identity, the IC suggested using the global crisis theme – understood not just as an economic crisis, but also as an environmental, food, energy, civilization and humanitarian crisis – but at the same time respecting the local organization autonomy in the definition of themes to be discussed during each event.
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