In Latin America and the Caribbean live almost 55 million indigenous women and men, constituting 8.5% of the populationwho have historically lacked access to basic services and whose vulnerability was accentuated by the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Thursday the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The new ILO publication Labor overview of the indigenous peoples of Latin America points out that the precariousness of the more than 800 indigenous peoples of the region evidenced by the pandemic reposed the challenge of achieve better coverage of social protection systems.
The study highlights the overrepresentation of indigenous peoples in the informal economy and in the poorest segments of the populationtheir low access to decent work and the difficulties they face in obtaining an education and participating politically.
Migration to urban centers
The ILO points out that 52% of indigenous people have migrated to urban centers either in search of better opportunities and higher income or because they have been dispossessed of their land or have been forced by climate change, ecological deterioration, conflict and violence To do it.
In the section on employment, the agency reported that the 85% of indigenous people in the region work in the informal economya figure well above 50% of the proportion of the total population that works.
“Indigenous workers tend to be more self-employed or unpaid family workers than the rest of the population. According to the available data the 16% of indigenous people of working age are in unpaid family workthe percentage for their non-indigenous counterparts is 4%,” the document reveals.
Wage gap
Regarding salaries, he points out that Latin America is the region with the largest labor income gap and specifies that the salaries of indigenous people are equivalent to 33% of those received by non-indigenous people.
The ILO considered that in order to correct the relegated situation of indigenous peoples in the labor sphere, it is imperative ensure their access to decent work opportunities and to social protection.
He added that reducing the inequalities and vulnerabilities that devastate native communities is urgent to establish social protection systems that consider the characteristics of these peoples.
Basic elements of social protection
For the UN body, social programs must include four basic elements:
- social protection of childhood: family and child benefits
- Social protection for women and men of working age: employment benefits maternity and disability; protection in case of accidents at work, occupational disease and unemployment; disability pensions; sickness benefits
- Social protection of older women and men: the pensions old age and survivors
- Protection of the Health
The study points out that the Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples of the ILO establishes the necessary guarantees of social security and health of these communities and recalls that Latin America and the Caribbean is the region that has most ratified this international instrument, with 14 of the 24 ratifications so far.
statistical invisibility
The analysis emphasizes the lack of the region regarding specific statistics in its demographic information and cites as an example that of the 18 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean that have information from household and employment surveys, only eight have ethnic information of people and ten inquire about belonging to indigenous peoples: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama and Peru.
This lack generates a situation of “statistical invisibility”, which constitutes the first step in a series of “unequal treatment that this segment of the population may receive”, asserts the labor agency and abounds that by not being represented in official statistics , it is more difficult to include them within the indicators of development goals of countries, and their welfare status is less likely to be a matter of public policy.
