Indigenous rights charity files Ofcom compliant against Channel 4 over depiction of Amazon tribe

Survival International says the claim that the Suruwaha tribe routinely commits infanticide against disabled children is false

The charity says the infanticide claims were fabricated by fundamentalist Christians (Survival International/Channel 4)

Survival International has lodged a formal complaint with Ofcom against Channel 4 over a report which alleged that many Brazilian tribes routinely kill disabled children.

The report, which was broadcast earlier this month, focused on Atini - an evangelical mission in Brazil that cares for children which it says have been abandoned by indigenous tribes such as the Suruwaha.

Survival, which campaigns for the rights of indigenous people and uncontacted tribes, said the broadcaster appeared to express support for the proposed “Mujawi’s law”.

The bill, first proposed in 2008, backed by Christian evangelicals and conservative members of the Brazilian Congress forces members of tribal communities to tell outside authorities if any pregnant woman is in a “situation of risk” in a bid to prevent the unwanted baby being disposed of.

It also gives Brazilian authorities the power to break up indigenous families if they suspect infanticide.

Campaigners for the law claim that every year hundreds of babies are killed for being disabled, being twins or simply being born out of wedlock by tribes living in the Amazon rainforest, but experts have dismissed these reports as “exaggerated”.

Anthropologists quoted by Survival said infanticide among the Suruwaha tribe was “insignificant” and the campaign was instigated by “fundamentalists” to get “media attention”.

Dr Miguel Apraricio Suárez, who studied the tribe between 1995 and 2001, said: “Infanticide among the Suruwaha is insignificant. The (campaign) was initiated by the fundamentalists, who have lost ground since the government prohibited them proselytizing. To get media attention and public opinion, the Suruwaha are the victims of a campaign to criminalise and ‘animalise’ them.”

Dr Nicole Freris, a UN doctor who worked with various Amazon communities between 1993 and 2002, said: “Through my direct contact with indigenous people, and from working with indigenists and state health services, my strong opinion is that infanticide is an extremely rare practice in indigenous cultures.

“It most commonly appears as a consequence of the profound disruption caused to the health and social fabric of native cultures, through contact with the outside world.”

Survival’s legal team said they had launched the formal complaint with the UK’s broadcast regulator as they said the report lacked impartiality and failed “to give viewers all the relevant facts”.

In the complaint, Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry, said: “Infanticide among the tribe to which Muwaji and her daughter belong, the Suruwaha, is extremely rare. Among isolated tribal communities in the Amazon generally, many anthropologists believe that infanticide is equally rare.

“Channel 4’s reporter made no reference at all to this body of opinion, either because he was not aware of its existence when he should have been, or because he thought that this might reduce the dramatic impact of the story.”

Experts say there is little evidence that the tribes living along the Amazon river engage in infanticide (file photo) (AFP/Getty Images) (AFP/Getty)

In 2014 an Australian TV station, Channel Seven, was found guilty of inaccurate reporting and provoking racism by the country’s federal court after it aired a similar report on the infanticide allegations.

The Australian Federal Court refused to overturn a ruling by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in 2012 which found that the edition of Seven’s flagship Sunday Night programme about the Suruwaha people could provoke “intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule against a person or group” based on their ethnicity.

The programme, which was aired in 2011, reportedly called the tribe “one of the worst human rights violators in the world” and described them as “Stone Age relics”.

The Independent has contacted Channel 4 for comment.