The unique cultures of minorities and indigenous peoples worldwide – spanning a wide variety of customs and practices – are under threat. This year’s edition of State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples highlights the impact of land dispossession, forced assimilation and other forms of discrimination on the most fundamental aspects of their identity, including language, art, traditional knowledge and spirituality. But while the effects of this attrition can be devastating, minority and indigenous cultures have also been critical in strengthening communities and providing activists with a platform to fight for their rights. As this volume illustrates, ensuring that the cultural freedoms of minorities and indigenous peoples are protected is essential if their other rights are also to be respected.

In the year that saw the establishment of UN Women, the new United Nations entity for gender equality and women’s empowerment, minority and indigenous women continued to face violence, discrimination and marginalization, stemming both from their identity as women and as members of disadvantaged minority groups. In Latin America, despite the election of women as heads of state in several countries, African descendant and indigenous women remain virtually invisible in public and political life. They are also the population group that has borne the brunt of armed conflict in the region, subjected to rape and sexual violence. As elsewhere, they have little hope of redress against those who assaulted them. In Europe and Oceania, migrant women face economic and social marginalization, and are often unable to access support services because of their immigration status, leaving them trapped in abusive relationships. In 2010, women belonging to Muslim minorities in the global North choosing to wear the face veil also faced increasing pressure, with bans under discussion in many countries. In the Middle East and Africa, minority and indigenous women continue to be subjected to religious and customary legal systems that deny them their rights, while Iraqi refugee women (many of whom belong to religious minorities) elsewhere in the Middle East are increasingly vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation. In Asia, sexual violence against women has again been used as a weapon against minority women, while land seizures are resulting in further economic marginalization of indigenous groups. This year’s edition of State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples presents an overview of the situation of minority and indigenous women today, and includes: - Discussions of gender-based violence and armed conflict, including the violence that indigenous and minority women experience within their own communities, and the difficulties that they face in accessing justice and support from outside. - Consideration of the lack of progress made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals for minority and indigenous women, with special focus on reproductive rights and maternal mortality. - Interviews and special reports on trafficking, intersectional discrimination, land seizures and women’s political representation. - Overviews of the human rights situation of minorities and indigenous peoples in every major world region. - ‘Peoples Under Threat 2011’ – MRG’s unique statistical analysis and ranking of countries. An invaluable reference for policy makers, academics, journalists and everyone who is interested in the human rights situation of minorities and indigenous peoples around the world.

"The present guide offers information related to norms and mechanisms developed to protect the rights of persons belonging to national, ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities. It includes detailed information about procedures and forums in which minority issues may be raised to minorities and by also covering selected specialized agencies and regional mechanisms, the present Guide complements information contained in Working with the United Nations Human Rights Programme: A Handbook for Civil Society"--Introduction.

Natural resource development projects such as logging and dams, oil and mineral extraction and large-scale agriculture have been successful in generating vast revenues across the globe. But at what cost to minorities and indigenous peoples?In its flagship annual publication, State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012, MRG documents hundreds of case studies about marginalized groups who have been adversely affected by exploitation of the resources found on, or under, their ancestral lands. It also considers land rights around the world.

Minority rights in the Middle East are subject to different legal regimes: national law and international law, as well as Islamic law. This book investigates the treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in the region both from a historical and contemporary perspective, before addressing three case studies: Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

Around the planet, Indigenous people are using old and new technologies to amplify their voices and broadcast information to a global audience. This is the first portrait of a powerful international movement that looks both inward and outward, helping to preserve ancient languages and cultures while communicating across cultural, political, and geographical boundaries. Based on more than twenty years of research, observation, and work experience in Indigenous journalism, film, music, and visual art, this volume includes specialized studies of Inuit in the circumpolar north, and First Nations peoples in the Yukon and southern Canada and the United States.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.