The History Of Indigenous People In Brazil

1047 Words3 Pages

IntroIntroduction

Brazil is an influential democracy although the country continues to confront serious human rights challenges. The Amnesty International in its annual report from 2013 claims that grave human rights abuses against rural workers, communities citizens and indigenous people remain high. They are Brazilian cultural heritage as well as important part of the famous melting pot. Brazilian indigenous people have made substantial and pervasive contributions to the world's medicine with knowledge used today. Many have been forced from their land with little or no consultation and face persistent persecution. As deforestation companies move in to take advantage of the large area of space the Amazon offers, indigenous tribes that live in the forest are subject to violence. The attempt of this work is to analyse what kind of framework in Brazil gives the indigenous people rights, what kind of right are these and if the Brazilian government respects them.

Indigenous people in Brazil

There are almost 900,000 indigenous people living in Brazil, according to the 2010 census. Acoording to FUNAI (National Indian Foundation- responsible for protecting the interests, cultures, and rights of the Brazilian indigenous people) there are still 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil. The indigenous people live in all parts of the country. The regions are divided into 4 main groups:
I - Amazônia –states Amazonas, Pará, Mato Grosso, Maranhão, Tocantins, Rondônia, Acre, Roraima and Amapá;
II – Northeast and East- states Ceará, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Piauí, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe and Espírito Santo;
III – South and Southeast - states Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, Santa Catarina, São Paulo and Rio de Janei...

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...nd while Brazil’s controversial hydro-electric dams programme will provide cheap energy to the mining companies it will destroy the lands and livelihoods of thousands of Indians.

Conclusion

International observers warn the influence of the landowners' lobby is once again on the rise. Organization like Amnesty International are calling for attention of supranational action as the history of abusing indigenous people repeats and Brazilian administration is not doing any progress in this issue. Brazil should be inspired by other Latinamerican nations like Peru that made the indigenous heritage important part of their culture and attraction for tourism. With rising potential of democracy of the country that has been seen last year there is a hope that Brazlian people will defend rights of the indigenous and won´t let other tribes to get closed to the extintion.

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