Mexico City, October 28 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Over 8,000 indigenous people are serving sentences in Mexico's state and federal prisons because of institutionalized racism, indigenous rights advocates said on Tuesday. 

At the conference “Indigenous Peoples: Social Disadvantages, Access to Rights and Justice,” various indigenous leaders discussed the structural problems their people face in Mexico, home to nearly 16 million indigenous people.

"Discrimination and racism permeate the state, institutions and society,” said Leticia Aparicio Soriano from the National School of Social Work at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “Native people are perceived as needy, lacking, impotent,"
       
These forces of discrimination mean indigenous people are not considered social actors who can also propose, organize and develop public policies to protect and enhance their rights, Aparicio said.

The Mexican state’s unwillingness to shape policies in consultation with indigenous communities has produced higher levels of poverty and limited access to social services while keeping native languages unprotected, organizers mentioned, according to Notimex news agency.

The lack of judicial assistance, cultural sensitivity and due process has led to thousands of indigenous people serving sentences in judicial and federal prisons, explained Maria Amparo Gutierrez Reyes, legal representative of the Mexican Indigenous Women's Network.