UNCC300: Justice and Change: Indigenous Communities Participation

This essay, written for the UNCC300: Justice and Change in a Global World course, explores the systemic exclusion and marginalization of indigenous communities across various sectors, particularly health, education, and the legal system. The paper highlights the significant disparities in health outcomes, access to healthcare, and life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous populations, using Australia as a case study. It examines the impact of underinvestment in healthcare, geographical and cultural barriers to accessing services, and the historical context of assimilationist educational strategies. The essay further investigates the vulnerabilities of indigenous communities within the legal system, including issues related to crime and incarceration. It argues for increased participation of indigenous communities in defining solutions for a common future, referencing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and emphasizing the need for culturally sensitive policies and programs to address these inequalities.

Running head: JUSTICE AND CHANGE IN A GLOBAL WORLD 1
Justice and Change in a Global World
Name
Institution

JUSTICE AND CHANGE IN A GLOBAL WORLD 2
TITLE: Improving Participation for Indigenous Communities
DATE:
AUTHOR:
As a student studying justice and global change, indigenous communities have been
neglected in various sectors especially the health sector. Globally, indigenous communities have
poor health solutions compared to the non-indigenous people. Although there have been efforts
to enhance indigenous communities participation in several sectors such as business, healthy,
law, and education, there are several factors that have this unsuccessful. The common good
principle has failed because the indigenous people are often excluded from and marginalized
from the main health services in Australia and across the world.
At the local level, the gap of participation of the indigenous communities is acceptably
wide. Compared to the non-indigenous population, the health status of the indigenous
communities is poor. Considering all the statistics, there exists a wide inequality gap. For
instance, in Australia, the life expectancy gap between the indigenous and the non-indigenous is
approximately 17 years (Gilroy, Donelly, Colmar & Parmenter, 2016). Besides, death rates that
are age specific among indigenous communities aged below 65 years is at least twice that which
is experienced by the non-indigenous communities. This group is not given equal opportunity in
accessing primary health care as well as infrastructure that comprises of effective sewage system,
healthy housing, and safe drinking water. Regarding the law, indigenous communities are
victims of crime. The Social justice Commissioner conducted research that sought to determine
the circumstances of indigenous women in Australia’s prisons (Panaretto, et al., 2014). The
research found out that the indigenous communities, especially women, are victims of complex

JUSTICE AND CHANGE IN A GLOBAL WORLD 3
frames of dynamics ranging from violence, poverty, loss, spiritual breakdown, and trauma.
Particularly, within the criminal justice process, indigenous women are vulnerable due to the
combination of socio-economic conditions that they face. Since the age of colonialism,
indigenous communities are forced to attend mainstream educational institutions whose goal is to
promote knowledge, languages, beliefs, as well as values at the expense of these indigenous
communities. Due to these assimilationist educational strategies, many indigenous communities
have lost their languages, value systems, and knowledge. However, some of these communities
that manage to preserve them to certain extents, find themselves in harsh institutions when the
society and the education systems fail to support them in this endeavor.
In the global perspective, the first factor that is a challenge to the aspirations of realizing
the common good principle is underinvestment in healthcare. Indigenous communities mostly
reside in remote areas. For example, in America, 40% of the indigenous population have no
access to orthodox health care services ("Social determinants and the health of Indigenous
peoples in Australia – a human rights based approach | Australian Human Rights Commission",
2019). It is estimated that 80% of the indigenous people depend on traditional healers as their
basic health care provide whereas another American is entitled to modern health care services.
Additionally, the health care services givers are in the remote areas where then indigenous
people live are encountered by a shortage of staff competency, poor staff retention, and shortage
of medication (Taylor, Lalovic & Thompson, 2019). More so, the geographical barriers are a
hindrance to them in accessing services to other populations because of seasonal geographical
isolation, distance, and lack of affordable transportation.
Besides the problem associated with financial access to physical access to care,
indigenous people encounter several cultural barriers that hinder them from accessing adequate

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health care. Cultural barriers are one of the most challenges in achieving the common good due
to lack of understanding the social-cultural aspects influencing the attitudes, knowledge, and
practices of health in indigenous peoples (Lai, et al., 2018). The western medicine bias is
offensive and it has made it difficult to find health staff that understands indigenous language.
Communication barrier between the staff and the indigenous people have led to
misunderstanding hence poor health care services (Harfield, et al., 2018). Nonetheless, the
indigenous people are discriminated by the staff which inflicts fear and distrust of non-
indigenous people because of their past experiences. Therefore, the lack of accurate information
and statistics concerning the indigenous population makes the implementation of culturally
sensitive and effective programs and policies very difficult.
Conclusion
Committing to enhance indigenous people’s participation in health, education, and in the
legal system both locally and globally is important. Several measures have been put in place to
make this a success. The former Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, specifically
articulates that as of 2007, States have adopted the United Nation declaration on the Rights of
indigenous people. To solve this problem, it is time that all states adopt this landmark and
involve the indigenous communities to define solutions for a common future.

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References
Gilroy, J., Donelly, M., Colmar, S., & Parmenter, T. (2016). Twelve factors that can influence
the participation of Aboriginal people in disability services. Australian Indigenous
Health Bulletin, 16(1). http://healthbulletin.org.au/articles/twelve-factors-that-can-
influence-the-participation-of-aboriginal-people-in-disability/
Harfield, S. G., Davy, C., McArthur, A., Munn, Z., Brown, A., & Brown, N. (2018).
Characteristics of indigenous primary health care service delivery models: a systematic
scoping review. Globalization and Health, 14(1), 12.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29368657
Lai, G., Taylor, E., Haigh, M., & Thompson, S. (2018). Factors affecting the retention of
indigenous Australians in the health workforce: a systematic review. International
journal of environmental research and public health, 15(5), 914.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5981953/
Panaretto, K. S., Wenitong, M., Button, S., & Ring, I. T. (2014). Aboriginal community
controlled health services: leading the way in primary care. Medical Journal of
Australia, 200(11), 649-652. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24938346
Social determinants and the health of Indigenous peoples in Australia – a human rights based
approach | Australian Human Rights Commission. (2019). Retrieved 22 September 2019,
from https://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/social-determinants-and-
health-indigenous-peoples-australia-human-rights-based

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Taylor, E. V., Lalovic, A., & Thompson, S. C. (2019). Beyond enrolments: a systematic review
exploring the factors affecting the retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
health students in the tertiary education system. International journal for equity in
health, 18(1), 1-19. https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-019-
1038-7