Report alleges that illegal miners committed rape and other violence in Indigenous communities of the Brazilian Amazon.
According to a new report, illegal mining of gold rose to an unprecedented level last year on Brazil’s largest Indigenous reserve. It also included chilling accounts about abuses by miners including the extortionation of sex from women and girls.
According to a report released by the Hutukara Yanomami Association on Monday, the area of Garimpo, or wildcat mining, in the Yanomami reserve in the Amazon rainforest increased by 46 per cent in 2021 to 3,272 hectares (8.085 acres).
This is the highest annual increase since 2018 when monitoring began.
This is the worst invasion since the reservation’s establishment 30 years ago, stated the Indigenous rights group in the report. It was based primarily on satellite images and interviews of residents.
Illegal mining for gold or cassiterite is another way to deforest our lands and destroy our waters. [a key tin ingredient]Yanomami territory has seen an explosion in malaria and other infectious disease and a terrifying surge of violence against Indigenous people.
Illegal mining has increased in Amazon due to the rise in gold prices in recent years.
According to official figures, mining destroyed a record 125 km (48 miles) of Brazil’s Amazon last year.
Illegal miners linked to organised crime are accused in numerous abuses of Indigenous communities. These include poisoning rivers with mercury to separate gold from sediment, and sometimes launching deadly attacks on residents.
The report comes as Jair Bolsonaro, far-right president, pushes legislation for legalizing mining on Indigenous lands. This has drawn protests from Indigenous groups as well environmentalists.
One of the Amazon’s most iconic Indigenous groups, The Yanomami, shared a horrifying series of abuses.
They included miners who gave Yanomami drugs and alcohol, then sexually abused and raped girls and women.
According to the Yanomami, miners would often demand sex in return for food. One miner demanded an arrangement marriage with an adolescent girl as a payment for merchandise that he never delivered.
HAY said that Indigenous women consider the miners a terrible threat and condemned a climate based on terror and constant fear.
The Yanomami reservation covers 9.7 million hectares (24,000,000 acres) in northern Brazil. It is home to approximately 29,000 people, including the Yanomami and six isolated groups that have virtually no contact with the outside.
The AFP news agency did not immediately respond with comment to inquiries from Brazilian environmental and Indigenous authorities.
