Cultural inequalities: forms of discrimination and devaluation
that treat members of these groups as of lesser status and worth
than others Spatial inequalities: such groups frequently live in places that
make them harder to reach or easier to ignore
Economic inequalities: they are at the receiving end of an unfair
distribution of assets and opportunities
Political inequalities: they are deprived of voice and influence in
the decisions that affect their lives and their communities.
Each of these inequalities is a source of injustice in and of itself but
it is their mutually reinforcing interaction that explains the
persistence of social exclusion over time and its resistance to
‘business as usual’ approaches to the MDGs. Caste, race, ethnicity,
language and religion are among the most common markers of
exclusion. And as elsewhere in society, gender cuts across all these
so that women and girls from marginalised groups generally fare
worse than men and boys.
That these injustices begin in the earliest years is evident from some
of the examples relating to children cited in the report:
In India, despite overall declines in child mortality, it is over 90
per 1000 live births among dalit caste and tribal groups
compared to 59 among the better off castes Infant mortality rates among indigenous groups in Latin
America are much higher than those for non-indigenous
groups: in the early 2000s, it was 1.5 times higher in Brazil and
Mexico, 2 times higher in Ecuador and over 3 times higher in
Panama. In Nigeria, the predominantly Hausa-Fulani northern states
have much higher levels of poverty and child and maternal
mortality than the predominantly Yoruba/Igbo southern states.
The interaction between class, ethnicity, gender and location in
Nigeria means that a poor rural Hausa girl living in the north is
at the bottom of the distribution of educational opportunities in
her country In China, malnutrition was (2005) considerably higher in the
western provinces where its ethnic minorities are concentrated