Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Mato Grosso do Sul
INDIGENIST MISSIONARY COUNCIL - CIMI
tume
"Discrimination and ethnic hatred, ideas encouraged even by the
media, particularly accentuate the problem of suicides. The natives
are painted as obstacles, setbacks, obstacles to development. It's
as if the media sent the message 'If you want to live well, take the
indigenous out of your way', says the Attorney.
It is important to put a numerical coincidence between the
indigenous murders and suicides in Mato Grosso do Sul. In the
year 2007 the Cimi recorded 92 murders of indigenous people in
Brazil, being 53 in Mato Grosso do Sul. For Cimi, in an interval of
10 years - 2003 to 2012 - the cases of murders increase in 2007.
To give an idea, they jump from 28 cases in 2006 to 53 in 2007,
going to 42 in 2008 and after that the numbers remain at a level of
30 murders.
Considering the data of suicides of Sesai in Mato Grosso do Sul,
there is a high point on the curve in the year 2008, recording 59
cases. In 2007 were 40, and 42 in 2009. You cannot establish a
cause-and-effect relationship, not a direct relationship between
murders and suicides of the Guarani-Kaiowá in Mato Grosso do
Sul. However, these two categories of data, murders and suicides,
are present in the reality of this people, so that, plus the attempted
murders, form the basis of the context of greater violence on an
indigenous people in Brazil.
Many studies and analyses have already been made regarding
the disturbing rate of suicides among the Guarani-Kaiowa-
youth. For Sesai, variations of the suicides rates observed in the
population Guarani-Kaiowá present trend of 90 to 75 cases per
100 thousand, in the range of 14 years (2000-2013). These rates
are approximately 20 times superiors to the national rate. Many
studies point to the fact that the suicide, even if it is an universal
phenomenon, present in time and social spaces in the entire history
of humanity, increased in modernity. For indigenous peoples, the
rates are higher in many countries, such as Australia, New Zealand,
Canada and United States, among others, when compared to
national rates.
Scholars and people involved with the indigenous cause are
concerned about the reasons that lead to these high rates of suicides
among the natives. Everyone agrees that a set of factors must be
linked to the understanding of a very complex phenomenon. Loss
of cultural and historical links, abuse and dependence on drugs
and alcohol, mental problems, sexual abuse, family separations,
isolation in social life and in the family, stress and weakening of
the cultural beliefs and spiritual system are risk factors, studied
by many authors and cited in the study of the United Nations
Children's Fund (Unicef) and the International Work Group on
Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA).
In the analysis about the Guarani-Kaiowá, in that same study, we
find the following statement: "you can summarize that: indigenous
youth of today live without family support, with ephemeral friends,
without knowing their place, living from day to day without hardly
ever conjugating the verb in the future, the maximum is the very
near future of tomorrow. Carry a humanitarian trauma full of stories
told by their relatives, stories of exploitation, violence, deaths,
loss of dignity, in short, the recent history of many indigenous
peoples. Stories full of trauma, attached to a gift of frustration and
impotence. In these circumstances, these young people are the
product of what they call a generation suffering from what is called
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) "4
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