IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 2 ENGLISH | Page 43

few countries that officially register and document the situation in which their black population
lives.
According to estimates made by a few international organizations such as the United Nations,
CEPAL, World Bank, and IDB, blacks in Latin
America are at least one third of Latin America’s
total population: that is about 200 million people
and more than 50% of those people live in poverty. More than 50% of those people are women.
From any perspective, black women and girls are
the most affected by this situation, given the permanent vulnerability and riskiness of their situation, due to structural and cultural factors.
The majority of this black population is located in
the coastal areas of Latin American and the Caribbean, given the region’s history. It is no coincidence that the areas where Afro-descendants are
concentrated in most areas are the most isolated
and marginalized ones, places with less development and access to, or money for, public services.
Residents of these areas are constantly subject to
danger, violence and the worse socio-economic
conditions. Blacks in most of our countries are
concentrated in pockets of poverty in urban centers, marginalized areas, or shantytowns outside
principal cities.
In almost all our countries, the basic needs of our
Afro-descendants go unfulfilled; this affects
black women and children the most. They lack
the most basic services and are poorly educated:
they have the highest dropout rate, highest incidence of adolescent pregnancy, highest number
of woman-led households, most unhealthy living
conditions, most crowded conditions and highest
incidence of salaries below the poverty line.
Their most important priorities include receiving
sexual and reproductive healthcare, and facing

the high incidence of HIV and domestic and gender violence. They also need to improve the quality of their formal education and study diverse
technical fields, as well as have unfettered access
to the formal and non-traditional labor market
(IDB Survey of Afro-Latin American Women,
2004).
Work and Income Creation
The percentage of unemployed men and women
in the black communities in all our countries is
always high. In some places, it was possible to
verify that almost 45% of the economically active
population has no access to a salaried position,
50% of families rely on only one salary, and 6%
depends entirely on work in the informal sector
(personal or domestic services). Another important percentage depends on the remittances it
receives from abroad (IDB, 2004).
A large percentage of black women have little education. They do less well-paid work, often in the
worst working conditions. Few Afro-descendant
women achieve leadership and power positions,
and when it does happen, they are often subjected
to difficult tests.
Health
Water service in many Afro-descendant communities is quite sub-standard, which frequently
causes diarrhea in children. There are frequent
cases of hepatitis. In some countries, there are still
houses that use artesian wells for their water and
lack a sewage system. Many black women remain
unaware of the importance of breast exams; they
also do not know what a mammogram is. Given
this lack of information, there is a high incidence
of breast and uterine cancer, despite the ease with
which it can be detected. The lack of sex education also brings with it a propensity for them to

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