Batwa appeal to government for affirmative action

Rwanda's third and smallest ethnic group, the Batwa, has renewed its appeal to the government for affirmative action to improve the livelihoods of the country's estimated 20,000 Batwa population.

Also known as pygmies, the Batwa are forest hunter-gatherers. They say they suffer from discrimination in the social, economic and political spheres and that the government has so far ignored their pleas for help.

"The Batwa families are very vulnerable and bound for extinction if nothing is urgently done," Zephyrin Kalimba, president of the Rwanda association for indigenous people, known as CAURWA, told the Rwanda News Agency on Wednesday.

Kalimba said that the Batwa suffered in particular from "continued unfairness" at the grass roots level. He said that local leaders gave false information about the Batwa to higher levels of government. He also said that the Batwa should have special representation in parliament and in the areas of housing and education.

In February the international NGO, Minority Rights Group, which campaigns for the rights of indigenous people worldwide, said that the Batwa had not benefited from existing land rights legislation and that greater action should be taken to ensure that the right to equality and non-discrimination for the Batwa was secured in law and in practice.