WORLD TRIBAL DAY

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• The International Day of the World’s Indigenous People is observed on 9 August each year to raise awareness and protect the rights of the world’s indigenous population.
• On 9th August 2018, the first National Report on the State of India’s Tribal People’s Health was submitted to the Government of India by the Expert Committee on Tribal Health.
• The day recognizes the first meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva in 1982.
• It has been celebrated every year since 1994, in accordance with the declaration by the United Nations
• To date, numerous indigenous peoples experience extreme poverty, marginalization, and other human rights violations.

Report

• The 13-member committee was jointly appointed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
• It took five years of research for the committee to bring out the evidence and provide a true picture of the state of tribal people of the country.

Findings:

• Tribal people are concentrated in 809 blocks in India.
• Such areas are designated as the Scheduled Areas.
• Unexpected finding was that 50% of India’s tribal population (around 5.5 crore) live outside the Scheduled Areas, as a scattered and marginalised minority.
• The health status of tribal people has certainly improved during the last 25 years.
• Under-five child mortality rate has declined from 135 (Deaths per 1000) in 1988 (National Family Health Survey NFHS-1) to 57(Deaths per 1000) in 2014 (NFHS-4).
• The % of excess of under-five mortality among STs compared to others has widened.
• Child malnutrition is 50% higher in tribal children (42% compared to 28% in others).

Major Recommendations of the Committee

• Firstly, the committee suggested launching a National Tribal Health Action Plan with a goal to bring the status of health and healthcare at par with the respective State averages in the next 10 years.
• Second, the committee suggested nearly 80 measures to address the 10 priority health problems, the health care gap, the human resource gap and the governance problems.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT