This online directory of minorities and indigenous peoples grew out of Minority Rights Group’s encyclopaedic World Directory of Minorities, first published in 1990 and updated and expanded in 1997. This World Directory has been restructured into database format, updated and expanded, and the entire text is now available free of charge for the use of all those throughout the world with an interest in any aspect of minorities and indigenous peoples, their rights, their historical, political or g more...

Interview with Charles Uwiragiye, executive director of the Rwandan Cultural Conservation Act (CCA) and secretary of the Central African region of the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of Tropical Forests.

For more than 10 years, Charles Uwiragiye has been a key figure in promoting the rights of Batwa pygmies in Rwanda. Today, he is an active international participant in the struggle to protect indigenous groups in Central Africa. He has regularly attended the United Nat more...

The Batwa community in Rwanda received a set-back in 2007. Following a long-running dispute with the government, the main Batwa organization, the Community of Indigenous People of Rwanda (CAURWA), was forced to change its name as the government refused to renew its charity licence until it had dropped the word ‘indigenous' from its title.
Since the 1994 genocide, when the ruling elite of the majority Hutu group stoked up murderous hatred against minority Tutsis, ethnicity has been a difficult more...

Whilst attending the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in Congo-Brazzaville, Neil Clarke, MRG’s Programmes Officer, spoke to Benon Mugaruwa (pictured), President of the African Indigenous and Minorities Peoples Organisation (AIMPO), an organisation working with Batwa in Rwanda.

All around the world, groups are being targeted for killing because of their ethnic or religious identity. Peoples Under Threat identifies those peoples or groups that are most under threat of genocide, mass killing or other systematic violent repression in 2008.
This is the third successive year that Minority Rights Group International has compiled the Peoples Under Threat table as a contribution to early warning for civilian protection. To introduce the table this year, MRG's Executive Direct more...

Over recent decades, development activity and political instability have encroached on the living space of many pygmy communities of the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. The increasing number of urban settlements, population growth, deforestation, armed conflict and ethnic discrimination have forced a large number of pygmies to leave their ancestral lands. Displaced from the forests that provided them their livelihoods, pygmies have struggled to find their place in the modern world. Today, more...

This Statement is a call to all States, international and national organizations, civil society and communities to uphold the rights of girls and women. It also calls on those bodies and communities to develop, strengthen, and support specific and concrete actions directed towards ending female genital mutilation. However, despite some successes, the overall rate of decline in the prevalence of female genital mutilation has been slow. It is therefore a global imperative to strengthen work for th more...

The Hunter Gatherer Forum of East Africa is a network of indigenous peoples’ organisations in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. HUGAFO was formed in 2004 by indigenous hunter-gatherer and post-hunter-gatherer peoples in Kenya to advocate for our recognition as peoples and our rights as indigenous peoples in keeping with international instruments, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
HUGAFO unites indigenous minority gr more...

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights issued this ''Advisory Opinion'' to African heads of state on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Advisory Opinion directly addresses the concerns raised by the African Group at the UN in November 2006 and the January 2007 African Union meeting. The ACHPR affirmed that there is no contradiction between the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the African Charter. It further stated that the Declaration is f more...

The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) is an international non-profit, non-governmental human rights organization devoted to eliminating discrimination and racism, forging international solidarity among discriminated minorities and advancing the international human rights system. Founded in 1988 by one of Japan's largest minorities, the Buraku people, IMADR has grown to be a global network of concerned individuals and minority groups with regional commi more...