artificial way to allow black people to ascend in society, and that this may aggravate prejudice, although the federal court has declared the quotas constitutional. In 2006 a group of prominent opinion makers, including several leading Brazilian academics and artist Caetano Veloso, wrote a controversial letter to the Brazilian press condemning quotas. The fierce response to this letter referred to as the 'Manifesto Branco' by Afro-Brazilian activists and allies demonstrates how discussions about reparations and affirmative action programmes for Afro-descendants continue to engender fierce debates across the region.
Current state of minorities and indigenous peoples
In 2005 Doudou Diene, UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related forms of Intolerance, visited Brazil and made recommendations on the importance of supporting affirmative action programmes, promoting cultural identity and youth development in the country. He followed up on this report with a visit to Brazil in 2006 for the Regional Conference of the Americas in Brasilia, an event that was envisioned as a continuation of the Santiago preparatory conference for the UN World Conference against Racism. At this meeting he met with civil society activists to discuss the findings from his report and analyse new paradigms of ethnic conflict and globalization. Immediately before this session in Brasilia, the Brazilian government hosted a meeting of the African Union in Salvador, Bahia, which was widely attended by African heads of state and international celebrities such as Stevie Wonder, who used the meeting as an opportunity to make a declaration in support of racial quotas.
Evidence of exclusion of the vast black minority in Brazil is rampant. Nearly 80 per cent of Afro-Brazilians live below the nation's poverty line, compared to 40 per cent of white citizens. Afro-descendants in Brazil earn half of what white groups earn; life expectancy is 6.5 years lower for blacks than for whites; and one half of all Afro-Brazilians are illiterate – some two and a half times the number of whites who cannot read or write. Only 4 per cent of Afro-Brazilians between the ages of 18 and 24 are in universities, compared to 12 per cent of whites. Three-quarters of all Afro-Brazilians have not completed secondary school, and 40 per cent of blacks have not completed elementary school. In the UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI), Brazil ranks 69th. This is roughly the average of two Brazils divided by race: the HDI of a hypothetical Afro-Brazilian nation would come 101st, while an all-white nation would rank 46th. Social and economic progress in Brazil depends on the advancement of the country's large black population.
In 2007 Afro-Brazilians continued to earn less than 50 percent of the national average income. They also suffered from the highest homicide, poverty and illiteracy rates in a country, with one of the highest homicide rates in the world and the world's highest death rate by firearms.
Seriously under-represented in professional positions and in the middle and upper classes, Afro-Brazilians continued to be over-represented in prisons. In 2007 Afro-Brazilians made up more than 56 per cent of the prison population.The statistics for indigenous communities are just as troubling. The infant mortality rate in indigenous communities is almost three times the national average. A quarter of indigenous children do not have access to schools and 15 per cent of children between the ages of 10 and 15 are illiterate. Three-quarters of indigenous children live below the poverty line. The National Foundation of the Indigenous (FUNAI) reports that Brazil's indigenous people continue to face disease and poor health care, loss of native culture and recurring incursions, especially in the rainforest.
Likewise, regarding health and access to health care, indigenous communities find themselves collectively in an increasingly precarious situation. A recent study of the Javari Valley in the Brazilian Amazon – which is said to be the second largest indigenous terri