Indigenous Peoples: another prey of the COVID-19 hunt?
Analysis by Cherly Abou Chabke, Staff Writer
June 4th, 2020
“While all communities have had to wrestle with COVID-19 these past few months, the everyday realities of this crisis are different for everyone,” Justin Trudeau said on May 21 2020, during his Rideau Cottage address.
Indigenous people are among the most excluded and underrepresented groups on earth, who are persistently struggling to preserve their land and their rights, particularly their right to self determination. Despite significant diversity in Indigenous communities globally, they all have one thing in common - they all share a history of injustice.
In fact, since time immemorial, aboriginals and Indigenous communities have been persecuted, tortured, enslaved, discriminated against, and rejected. During the COVID-19 era, injustices have been heightened, thus intensifying disparities midst communities and shedding light on the wounds of our global systems. From East to West, North to South, it is a constant struggle throughout this pandemic, to be a part of an Indigenous group.
Therefore, this analysis will mainly assess the situation of autochthones, Indigenous communities, in specific areas, in order to elucidate the “far from mere” difficulties these communities have been subject to.
“The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development must realize the rights of indigenous peoples across all the Goals. Indigenous peoples must not be left behind.” - Previous United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Indigenous peoples are at unequal risk in public health crises. It goes without saying that even when they are able to access healthcare services in regular times, they can still face numerous complications including, yet not limited to, stigma, discrimination and the language barrier.
As the number of COVID-19 infections upsurges globally, data on the rate of infection in Indigenous peoples are either not yet available or not recorded by ethnicity.
Not to mention that in many parts of the world, public health awareness campaigns are not presented in Indigenous languages. Thus, lacking an intercultural understanding, these actions, which strive to assuage the spread of the coronavirus, are frequently taking a disproportional toll on these communities. “We urge Member States and the international community to include the specific needs and priorities of Indigenous peoples in addressing the global outbreak of COVID 19.”— Chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Anne Nuorgam.
Internationally, Indigenous peoples struggle with primary societal inequalities that become glaringly ostensible when they are asked to take simple precautions. Due to the deficiency of resources and information, these groups are incapable of respecting prevention measures – including hand washing. “Currently, only 67.3% of Indigenous Peoples have access to a water network, almost 20% less than the non-Indigenous population”, according to the IWGIA.
Indigenous peoples, like the Laikipia Maasai and Samburu in Kenya, living in geographically isolated landscapes, find it very difficult to access essential services during the ongoing pandemic.
Matters degenerate when this access is prohibited by certain armed groups, which is the case in Libya. In fact, due to the omnipresent discrimination against ethnic minority groups and years of armed conflict, when in need for medical assistance, Indigenous peoples, are forced to travel far from their territories, visiting smaller and typically underequipped hospitals to evade regions controlled by rival groups.
In Brazil, where the presence of Indigenous people is also not welcomed, the situation of native peoples is alarming. As COVID-19 continues to spread across the country, many have raised concerns on whether the government will seek to protect its autochthones groups, which make up 0.5% of the national population. "There is an incredible risk of the virus spreading across the native communities and wiping them out," says Dr Sofia Mendonça, a researcher at the Federal University of São Paulo. At a time when far-right president Jair Bolsonaro contests containment and advocates for the economic recovery of the country, the battle of survival of the 800,000 Indigenous people, is more complex than ever. With no access to rudimentary health care necessities, like hand sanitizers, they are taking matters into their own hands by seeking isolation deeper in the rainforests; further away from the virus, but also further away from help.
For Daiana Tukano, an indigenous activist "the pandemic is arriving at the height of a democratic crisis in Brazil. We are led by an openly anti-indigenous president who is dismantling all the policies supposed to protect these peoples". It is thus clear that COVID-19 is shattering the world’s Indigenous populations far beyond the immediate health threat.
As a matter of fact, governments in some countries, such as Myanmar are using COVID-19 as an excuse to move on with their “repressive agendas”, and to step up their military campaign in areas inhabited by Indigenous peoples. Likewise, in Peru. On 18 March 2020, in the middle of the national "obligatory social isolation", there was an oil spill in Piura – which serves as one of many illustrations of enduring exploitation on Indigenous lands. The craze of “land exploitation” has become so blunt that the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights asserted that: “Emergency declarations based on the COVID-19 outbreak should not be used as a basis to target particular groups, minorities, or individuals. It should not function as a cover for repressive action under the guise of protecting health nor should it be used to silence the work of human rights defenders.”
Not to mention, that in some cases, preventive measures adopted on a national scale, are not taking into account the lifestyle of Indigenous peoples. The highly marginalized “Akie” hunter-gatherers, in Tanzania find it very difficult to implement the actions required by the government, since they interfere with their elementary needs. “Economically we are affected because we as hunters and gatherers cannot sell the honey freely as we used to do. Honey being the sole mode of production which we depend on by selling, and then buying other things for our families” notes Oloshuro Saruni, a member of the Akie Indigenous group. ”If things become worse we will not be able to access food and other needs which are found in town and it will be difficult for us to survive”.
Nonetheless, can we really say that a country has successfully beaten COVID-19 if its remote communities still lack basic health care assistance?
While New Zealand has been heralded as one of the countries with the most efficacious COVID-19 containment response, it is crucial to notice that this success masks wider health and socio-economic disparities within the country, particularly between the Indigenous Māori and Pākehā, who make up respectively 16.5% and 8.1% of New Zealand’s 4.7 million people.
According to a 2018 report by the national data agency Stats NZ, “Poverty among Indigenous groups is rife, unemployment among Maori is twice the national rate and overcrowding is a serious problem, with Maori four times more likely than New Zealanders of European descent to live in a crowded home … Maori and Pacific Islanders also suffer more often from chronic illnesses and respiratory diseases, making them more vulnerable to COVID-19, which attacks the lungs”.
As an illustration of how bad things could get, community figures have pointed to past epidemics, including the 1918 Spanish flu, which saw Maori die at a rate eight times higher than Pākehā – the Maori term for New Zealand Europeans, six times the rate of Pākehā in the 1957 Asian Flu, eight times the rate for Pākehā in the 1959 Tuberculosis epidemic and three times the rate during Swine Flu in 2009.
To help address the issue, New Zealand promised 33.6 million U.S. dollars to Maori communities, with more than half of that allocated to health funding.
Similarly, the situation of Indigenous peoples in the states, bears a resemblance to the one in New Zealand, with a life expectancy among the estimated 5.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives of 5.5 years less than the national average, and with a high risk of them suffering from diabetes, chronic liver disease, and respiratory disease. As of April 14, the Indian Health Service had recorded over 1,200 positive cases amongst tribal populations, but alerted that the real number was likely much higher. In order to fight this issue, the country pledged at least 40 million U.S. dollars in emergency funding to Native Americans.
In Canada, the pandemic has arguably not hit Indigenous communities very hard yet, partly, since they tend to be situated far from cities. Nevertheless, it seems that the government is tackling best the problem at hand since it created a $305 million Indigenous Community Support Fund on march 18 which included $15 million for regional, urban and off-reserve Indigenous organizations, and added on march 21, $75 million to this existing fund.
In Australia, the government announced a 2.1-Million-U.S.-dollar plan to “set up 83 testing sites in Indigenous communities by mid-May to ensure no community is more than two to three hours' drive from a testing facility,” said Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt.
Even though the world is presently facing a myriad of challenges, it is vital to acknowledge that COVID-19 is not only a confront for health systems all around the globe but a test to overcome, for all humanity.