# Anti-Black racism

Anti-Black racism, also called anti-Blackness, colourphobia or negrophobia, is characterised by prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination or extreme aversion towards people who are racialised as Black people (especially those people from sub-Saharan Africa and its diasporas), as well as a loathing of Black culture worldwide. Such sentiment includes, but is not limited to: the attribution of negative characteristics to Black people; the fear, strong dislike or dehumanisation of Black men; and the objectification (including sexual objectification) and dehumanisation of Black women.
First defined by Canadian scholar Dr. Akua Benjamin, the term anti-Black racism (ABR) originally described racism towards Black people of African descent, as shaped by European colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade. However, the term Black can apply more widely to other groups, including Pacific and non-Atlantic Blacks (or Blaks), such as Indigenous Australians and Melanesians. As such, anti-Black racism has since been used to refer to racism against Black people more generally. The older terms negrophobia and colourphobia were terms created by American abolitionists to describe racism towards people of Sub-Saharan African descent, who were known at the time as Negroes or Coloured. The term anti-Blackness refers to racism against anyone racialised as Black.

## Concepts
### Terminology

Anti-Black racism, sometimes called negrophobia or colourphobia, is discriminatory sentiment towards people racialised as Black, often because the person believes that their race is superior to the Black race. The terms Afrophobia (or Afriphobia) and melanophobia have also been used.

#### Afrophobia

Afrophobia, or Afriphobia, is frequently used to describe racism (particularly systemic racism) against Black people of African descent, such as by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR). Others use Afrophobia to describe racism and xenophobia against people of African descent, especially racism and xenophobia against indigenous Africans, due to their perceived Africanness. This sentiment may also include prejudice against African traditions and culture. In South Africa, for example, Afrophobia is used to describe xenophobia against people of other African nationalities for being too racially Black, too culturally African, or both.

#### Anti-Black racism

Anti-Black racism was a term first used by Canadian scholar Dr. Akua Benjamin in a 1992 report on Ontario race relations. It is defined as follows:
   Anti-Black racism is a specific manifestation of racism rooted in European colonialism, slavery and oppression of Black people since the sixteenth century. It is a structure of iniquities in power, resources and opportunities that systematically disadvantages people of African descent.
The term quickly came to be used to refer to racism against other groups also considered Black, such as Indigenous Australians (who sometimes prefer the term Blak) and Melanesians.

#### Melanophobia

Melanophobia has been used to refer to both anti-Black racism and colourism (prejudice against people with darker skin), especially in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

#### Negrophobia and colourphobia

The term racism is not attested before the 20th century, but negrophobia (first recorded between 1810–1820; often capitalised), and later colourphobia (first recorded in 1834), likely originated within the abolitionist movement, where it was used as an analogy to rabies (then called hydrophobia) to describe the "mad dog" mindset behind the pro-slavery cause and its apparently contagious nature. In 1819, the term was used in U.S. Congressional debates to refer to a "violent aversion or hatred of Negroes".
The term negrophobia may also have been inspired by the word nigrophilism, itself first appearing in 1802 in Baudry des Lozières's Les égarements du nigrophilisme. Noting the shift of -phobia terms to cover prejudice and hatred rather than mere fear or aversion, J. L. A. Garcia refers to negrophobia as "the granddaddy of these ‘-phobia’ terms", preceding both xenophobia and homophobia.
Both at the time, and since, critics of the terms negrophobia and colourphobia have argued that, although their use of -phobia is rhetorical, if taken literally they could be used to excuse or justify the behaviour of racists as mental illness or disease. John Dick, publisher of The North Star, voiced such concerns as early as 1848 while legal scholar Jody David Armour has voiced similar concerns in the 21st century. Nevertheless, negrophobia had a clinical and satirical edge that made it popular with abolitionists. In 1856, abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe published Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, a novel which explored the fear of Blackness within negrophobia via the titular character Dred, a Black revolutionary Maroon.

#### Changing terminology

After abolition, negrophobia continued to be used to refer to anti-Black racism, but terms based on race also appeared around the turn of the 20th century. Racism first appeared in print in 1903. In December 1921, the terms negrophobia and race hatred were used to describe an outbreak of anti-Black violence in the Dominican Republic by John Sydney de Bourg, a spokesman for the local chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in San Pedro de Macorís. Negrophobia further reappeared in January 1927 in Lamine Senghor's La voix des nègres (The Voice of the Negroes), a monthly anti-colonialist newspaper. The term became more widespread outside of North America and the English-speaking world when French Caribbean psychologist and philosopher Frantz Fanon included it in his works Peaux noires masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks) and Les Damnés de la Terre (The Wretched of the Earth), again drawing on the rhetoric of racism as disease. As a psychiatrist, Fanon explored negrophobia as an individual and societal "neurosis", although he saw it as the psychological structure underpinning colonial racism.
By the middle of the 20th century, the term "Black" came to be preferred over "Negro", and so related terms became outdated. However, negrophobia is still sometimes used to distinguish anti-Black racism from racism more generally. In this sense, Negrophobia may mean an especially strong, violent or transmissible form of anti-Black racism. In France, Une Autre Histoire describes negrophobia as meaning "the most virulent form of racism targeting those who are perceived as 'blacks' by people considering themselves different from 'blacks'" (translation). Adia A. Brooks, who developed the Multidimensional Negrophobia Index (MNI) to measure anti-Black racism, describes it as a "thought system, or ideology" and "the profound fear or hatred of black people and black culture".

### Psychology

Psychologists and sociologists have explored the individual and social psychology of anti-Black racism, often in reference to Fanon's work on negrophobia. Jock McCulloch explores Fanon's conception from a psychodynamic perspective, arguing that negrophobia requires psychological projection, and reveals "a certain psychic dependence of the European upon the black". He also points out that negrophobia, though it can be described as an emotional disorder, is theorised to come from the same "psychodynamic mechanism" as antisemitism, and stresses the importance, in Fanon's account, of negrophobia as inherently racist and a product of colonialism. Despite this, the description of negrophobia as an emotional disorder or involuntary reflex has been used as a legal defense to justify violent crimes against Black people, including murder, as a form of self-defense or involuntary reaction.

### Internalised racism

Psychiatrist Frantz Fanon introduced the concept of internalised racism, or internalised negrophobia, pointing to the hatred of Black people and Black culture by Black people themselves. He asserts that anti-Black sentiment is a form of "trauma for white people of the Negro". Equivalent to internalised racism caused by the trauma of living in a culture defining Black people as inherently evil, Fanon emphasises the slight existing cultural intricacies caused by the vast diversity of Black people and cultures, as well as the nature of their colonisation by White Europeans. The symptoms of such internalised anti-Black sentiment include a rejection of their native or ethnic language in favour of European languages, a marked preference for European cultures over Black cultures, and a tendency to surround themselves with lighter-skinned people rather than darker-skinned ones.
Similarly, the pattern further includes attributing negative characteristics to Black people, culture, and things. Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye (1970) stands as an illustrative work on the destroying effects of anti-Black sentiment among the Black community on themselves. The main character, Pecola Breedlove, through her non-reconciliation with her Black identity, her Black societal indifference, and her craving for symbolic blue eyes, presents all the signs of an internalised anti-Black sentiment. She develops an anti-Black neurosis due to her feeling of non-existence both within the White and her own community.
While the latter theoretical framework is academically debated, Fanon insists on the nature of anti-Black sentiment as a socio-diagnosis, thus characterising not individuals but rather entire societies and their patterns. Fanon thereby implies that anti-Black sentiment is a cross-disciplinary area of research, justifying that its analysis and understanding may not be confined to the psychological field.

### Involuntary racism

In the book Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism, legal scholar Jody David Armour describes the term Involuntary Negrophobia as the legal precedent of defendants using a victim's Blackness as justification for violent crimes against them. Typically, such arguments rest on the idea that racist revulsion and violence directed at Black people is an involuntary reaction, such as with PTSD, and thus not an intentional criminal act; or that it constitutes a form of self-defence based on their perception of the victim as a threat because of their Blackness. This approach focusses on the personal culpability of the individual defendant, and their state of mind. Armour critiques this view as equating anti-Black sentiment with insanity and allowing a person's racial fear to legally justify and even excuse violent behaviour.

### Education and business

In response to Black Lives Matter organising contemporary scholars have begun focusing on anti-Blackness in educational institutions and places of business. These efforts build on established critical race discourses in their respective fields and incorporate concepts from Afropessimism.

## Anti-Black racism globally
### Africa
#### Mauritania

Slavery in Mauritania persists despite its abolition in 1980 and mostly affects the descendants of black Africans abducted into slavery who now live in Mauritania as "black Moors" or haratin and who partially still serve the "white Moors", or bidhan, as slaves. The practice of slavery in Mauritania is most dominant within the traditional upper class of the Moors. For centuries, the haratin lower class, mostly poor black Africans living in rural areas, have been considered natural slaves by these Moors. Social attitudes have changed among most urban Moors, but in rural areas, the ancient divide remains.
The ruling bidanes are descendants of the Sanhaja Berbers and Beni Ḥassān Arab tribes who emigrated to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania during the Middle Ages. Many descendants of the Beni Ḥassān tribes today still adhere to the supremacist ideology of their ancestors, which has caused the oppression, discrimination and even enslavement of other groups in Mauritania.

#### South Africa
##### Cape Coloureds

Mixed-race people in South Africa are referred to as Coloureds or Cape Coloureds. This term includes individuals with a mixed-race descent that can include African, Asian, and European ethnic heritage. The term "Coloured" is considered neutral in South African society and is commonly used to refer to individuals who self-identify as such. However, in some Western countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, the term "Coloured" has a negative connotation and can be seen as derogatory because it was historically used as a means of categorising Black individuals and reinforcing racial hierarchies. The word persists as a neutral descriptor in the names of some older organizations, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the United States.
The 1911 South African census played a significant role in shaping the country's racial identities. The enumeration process involved specific instructions for classifying individuals into different racial categories, and the category of "Coloured persons" was used to refer to all people of mixed race. This included various ethnicities, such as Khoikhoi, San, Cape Malays, Griquas, Korannas, Creoles, Negroes, and Cape Coloureds. What is particularly noteworthy about the classification of "Coloured persons" is that it included individuals of Black African descent, who were commonly known as Negroes. As a result, Coloureds or Cape Coloureds, as a group of mixed-race descent individuals, also have Black African ancestry and can be considered part of the broader African diaspora.
The racial category of Coloureds is a multifaceted and heterogeneous group that exhibits great diversity. Analogously, they can be compared to Black Americans, whose population is composed of approximately 75% West African and 25% Northern European ancestry. However, the Cape Coloureds possess an even greater level of complexity due to the presence of Bantu ancestry in their genetic makeup, which is closely linked to the predominantly West African heritage of Black Americans.
While Coloureds in South Africa do have Black African ancestry, it is important to recognize that they have a distinct identity and experiences that differ from those of Black South Africans. Despite this, there are instances where Coloureds may face discrimination and prejudice based on their mixed-race descent and Black African ancestry. Furthermore, some individuals who hold prejudiced attitudes towards Black people may also hold negative attitudes towards Coloureds, viewing them as inferior or less desirable due to their mixed-race heritage.

### Asia
#### India

Incidents of violence against African students in India are widespread with some being widely covered by local, national and international media. These include the murder of a 29 year old Congolese national, Masonda Ketada Olivier, in May 2016, who was beaten to death by 3 men in South Delhi over a fight about hiring an auto rickshaw. This incident triggered widespread condemnation from African students in India, the African Heads of Mission in New Delhi, along with local backlash against Indian minorities in the Congo. In March 2015, 4 men from the Ivory Coast were assaulted by a mob in the city of Bangalore. In 2020, in Uttarakhand's Roorkee Institute of Technology, 2 African students, Ibrahim a Nigerian-Guinean and Benjamin a Ghanaian were attacked by a group of security guards, with Ibrahim being dragged from the second to the ground floor and Benjamin being hit by bamboo sticks. This incident led to the arrest of the Director of the institution along with 7 other individuals.
Following incidents of violence, the Delhi police in 2017 created a special helpline for Africans residing in the National Capital Region as part of their outreach program to assure them of their safety and security.

#### Israel

In April 2012, the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported that tens of thousands of refugees and African migrant workers who have come to Israel in dangerous smuggling routes, live in southern Tel Aviv's Levinsky Park. SvD reported that some Africans in the park sleep on cardboard boxes under the stars, others crowd in dark hovels. Also was noted a situation with African refugees, such as Sudanese from Darfur, Eritreans, Ethiopians and other African nationalities, who stand in queue to the soup kitchen, organized by Israeli volunteers. The interior minister reportedly "wants everyone to be deported".
In May 2012, disgruntlement toward Africans and calls for deportation and "blacks out" in Tel Aviv boiled over into death threats, fire bombings, rioting, and property destruction. Protesters blamed immigrants for worsening crime and the local economy, some of protesters were seen throwing eggs at African immigrants

#### Saudi Arabia
### Europe

In Europe, anti-Black sentiment finds its roots in the 17th century due to its extensive historical colonisation and slavery.

#### France

In 2005, an anti-negrophobia brigade (BAN) was created in France to protest against increasing numbers of targeted acts and occurrences of police violence against Black people. The latter protest movements notably underwent severe police violence in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris during the 2011 and 2013 abolition of slavery commemorations.

#### United Kingdom

Black immigrants who arrived in Britain from the Caribbean in the 1950s faced racism. For many Caribbean immigrants, their first experience of discrimination came when trying to find private accommodation. They were generally ineligible for council housing because only people who had been resident in the UK for a minimum of five years qualified for it. At the time, there was no anti-discrimination legislation to prevent landlords from refusing to accept black tenants. A survey undertaken in Birmingham in 1956 found that only 15 of a total of 1,000 white people surveyed would let a room to a black tenant. As a result, many black immigrants were forced to live in slum areas of cities, where the housing was of poor quality and there were problems of crime, violence and prostitution. One of the most notorious slum landlords was Peter Rachman, who owned around 100 properties in the Notting Hill area of London. Black tenants sometimes paid twice the rent of white tenants, and lived in conditions of extreme overcrowding.
Historian Winston James suggests that the experience of racism in Britain was a major factor in the development of a shared Caribbean identity amongst black immigrants from a range of different island and class backgrounds.
In the 1970s and 1980s, black people in Britain were the victims of racist violence perpetrated by far-right groups such as the National Front. During this period, it was also common for Black footballers to be subjected to racist chanting from crowd members.
Racism in Britain in general, including against black people, is considered to have declined over time. Academic Robert Ford demonstrates that social distance, measured using questions from the British Social Attitudes survey about whether people would mind having an ethnic minority boss or have a close relative marry an ethnic minority spouse, declined over the period 1983–1996. These declines were observed for attitudes towards Black and Asian ethnic minorities. Much of this change in attitudes happened in the 1990s. In the 1980s, opposition to interracial marriage were significant. Nevertheless, Ford says:
   Racism and racial discrimination remain a part of everyday life for Britain's ethnic minorities. Black and Asian Britons...are less likely to be employed and are more likely to work in worse jobs, live in worse houses and suffer worse health than White Britons.
The University of Maryland's Minorities at Risk (MAR) project noted in 2006 that while African-Caribbeans in the United Kingdom no longer face formal discrimination, they continue to be under-represented in politics, and to face discriminatory barriers in access to housing and in employment practices. The project also says that the British school system "has been indicted on numerous occasions for racism, and for undermining the self-confidence of black children and maligning the culture of their parents". The MAR profile on African-Caribbeans in the United Kingdom suggests "growing 'black on black' violence between people from the Caribbean and immigrants from Africa". Martin Hewitt of the Metropolitan Police has said that murders using knives are given insufficient public attention because most victims are black people from London.
A 2014 study by the Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG), funded by Trust for London, explored the views of young Black males in London on why their demographic have a higher unemployment rate than any other group of young people. According to participants, racism and negative stereotyping were the main reasons for their high unemployment rate. In 2021, 67% of Black 16 to 64-year-olds were employed, compared to 76% of White British and 69% of British Asians. The employment rate for Black 16 to 24-year-olds was 31%, compared to 56% of White British and 37% of British Asians. The median hourly pay for Black Britons in 2021 was amongst the lowest out of all ethnicity groups at £12.55, ahead of only British Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. In 2023, the Office for National Statistics published more granular analysis and found that UK-born black employees (£15.18) earned more than UK-born white employees (£14.26) in 2022, while non-UK born black employees earned less (£12.95). Overall, black employees had a median hourly pay of £13.53 in 2022.

### North America
#### Canada

In a 2013 survey of 80 countries by the World Values Survey, Canada ranked among the most racially tolerant societies in the world. Nevertheless, according to Statistics Canada's Ethnic Diversity Survey, released in September 2003, when asked about the five-year period from 1998 to 2002 nearly one-third (32 per cent) of respondents who identified as Black reported that they had been subjected to some form of racial discrimination or unfair treatment "sometimes" or "often". Black Canadians face racism in both the public and private sectors of the Canadian economy. Both Black Canadian men and women endure significant wage gaps compared to non-visible minority Canadians.
From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, a number of unarmed Black Canadian men in Toronto were shot or killed by Toronto Police officers. In response, the Black Action Defence Committee (BADC) was founded in 1988. BADC's executive director, Dudley Laws, stated that Toronto had the "most murderous" police force in North America, and that police bias against blacks in Toronto was worse than in Los Angeles. In 1990, BADC was primarily responsible for the creation of Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, which investigates police misconduct. Since the early 1990s, the relationship between Toronto Police and the city's black community has improved; in 2015, Mark Saunders became the first black police chief in the city's history. Carding remained an issue as of 2016; restrictions against arbitrary carding came into effect in Ontario in 2017.
Throughout the years, high-profile cases of racism against Black Canadians have occurred in Nova Scotia. The province continues to champion human rights and battle against racism, in part by an annual march to end racism against people of African descent.

#### Dominican Republic

Racism in the Dominican Republic exists due to the after-effects of African slavery and the subjugation of black people throughout history. In the Dominican Republic, "blackness" is often associated with Haitian migrants and a lower class status. Those who possess more African-like phenotypic features are often victims of discrimination, and are seen as foreigners.

#### United States

In the context of racism in the United States, racism against African Americans dates back to the colonial era, and it continues to be a persistent issue in American society in the 21st century.
From the arrival of the first Africans in early colonial times until after the American Civil War, most African Americans were enslaved. Even free African Americans have faced restrictions on their political, social, and economic freedoms, being subjected to lynchings, segregation, Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of discrimination, both before and after the Civil War. Thanks to the civil rights movement, formal racial discrimination was gradually outlawed by the federal government and came to be perceived as socially and morally unacceptable by large elements of American society. Despite this, racism against Black Americans remains widespread in the U.S., as does socioeconomic inequality between black and white Americans. In 1863, two years prior to emancipation, Black people owned 0.5 percent of the national wealth, while in 2019 it is just over 1.5 percent.

### South America
#### Brazil

Many Brazilians still think that race impacts life in their country. A research article published in 2011 indicated that 63.7% of Brazilians believe that race interferes with the quality of life, 59% believe it makes a difference at work, and 68.3% in questions related to police justice. According to Ivanir dos Santos (the former Justice Ministry's specialist on race affairs), "There is a hierarchy of skin color: where blacks, mixed race and dark skinned people are expected to know their place in society." Although 54% of the population is black or has black ancestry, they represented only 24% of the 513 chosen representatives the legislature as of 2018.
For many decades, discussions of inequality in Brazil largely ignored the disproportionate correlation between race and class. Under the racial democracy thesis, it was assumed that any disparity in wealth between white and non-white Brazilians was due to the legacy of slavery and broader issues of inequality and lack of economic mobility in the country. The general consensus was that the problem would fix itself given enough time. This hypothesis was examined in 1982 by sociologist José Pastore in his book Social Mobility in Brazil. In his book, Pastore examines the 1973 household survey and compares the income and occupations of father-son pairs. Based on his findings, he concluded that the level of economic mobility in Brazil should have been enough to overcome inequality left from slavery had opportunities been available equally.
Racial inequality is seen primarily through lower levels of education and income for non-whites than whites. Economic inequality is most dramatically seen in the near absence of non-whites from the upper levels of Brazil's income bracket. According to sociologist Edward Telles, whites are five times more likely to be earning in the highest income bracket (more than $2,000/month). Overall, The salary of Whites in Brazil are, on average, 46% over the salary of Blacks.
Additionally, racial discrimination in education is a well documented phenomenon in Brazil. Ellis Monk, Professor of sociology at Harvard University, found that one unit of darkness in a student's skin corresponds to a 26 percent lower chance of the student receiving more education as compared to lighter-skinned students. Further, a study on racial bias in teacher evaluations in Brazil found that Brazilian math teachers gave better grading assessments of white students than equally proficient and equivalently well-behaved black students.
Quality of Life Indicators vs. Race
| Indicators | White Brazilian | Black & Multiracial Brazilian |
| Illiteracy | 3.4% | 7.4% |
| University degree | 15.0% | 4.7% |
| Life expectancy | 76 | 73 |
| Unemployment | 6.8% | 11.3% |
| Average annual income | R$37,188 | R$21,168 |
| Homicide deaths | 29% | 65.5% |

## Racism against non-African Black people

Though anti-Black racism traditionally refers to people of Black African descent, there are other groups who are identified as Black and whose experiences of racism may share similarities to those of Black Africans. These groups include Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) and Melanesians.

### Indigenous Australians

Indigenous peoples of Australia, comprising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples, have lived in Australia for at least 65,000 years before the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. The colonisation of Australia and development into a modern nation, saw explicit and implicit racial discrimination against Indigenous Australians.
Indigenous Australians continue to be subjected to racist government policy and community attitudes. Racist community attitudes towards Aboriginal people have been confirmed as continuing both by surveys of Indigenous Australians and self-disclosure of racist attitudes by non-Indigenous Australians.
Since 2007, government policy considered to be racist include the Northern Territory Intervention which failed to produce a single child abuse conviction, cashless welfare cards trialled almost exclusively in Aboriginal communities, the Community Development Program that has seen Indigenous participants fined at a substantially higher rate than non-Indigenous participants in equivalent work-for-the-dole schemes, and calls to shut down remote Indigenous communities despite the United Nation's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples specifying governments must facilitate the rights of Indigenous people to live on traditional land.

### Melanesians
#### Australia

Tens of thousands of South Sea Islanders were kidnapped from islands nearby to Australia and sold as slaves to work on the colony's agricultural plantations through a process known as blackbirding.
This trade in what were then known as Kanakas was in operation from 1863 to 1908, a period of 45 years. Some 55,000 to 62,500 were brought to Australia, most being recruited or blackbirded from islands in Melanesia, such as the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), the Solomon Islands and the islands around New Guinea.
The majority of those taken were male and around one quarter were under the age of sixteen. In total, approximately 15,000 South Sea Islander slaves died while working in Queensland, a figure which does not include those who died in transit or who were killed in the recruitment process. This represents a mortality rate of at least 30%, which is high considering most were only on three year contracts. It is also similar to the estimated 33% death rate of enslaved Africans in the first three years of being taken to America.
The trade was legally sanctioned and regulated under Queensland law, and prominent men such as Robert Towns made massive fortunes off of exploitation of slave labour, helping to establish some of the major cities in Queensland today. Towns' agent claimed that blackbirded labourers were "savages who did not know the use of money" and therefore did not deserve cash wages.

#### Indonesia

In the provinces of Papua and West Papua, the program has resulted in the Papuan population of Melanesian origin totalling less than the population of non-Melanesian (principally Austronesian) origin in several locations. According to Papuan independence activists, the Papuans have lived on the New Guinea island for an estimated 50,000 years, but have been outnumbered in less than 50 years by mostly Javanese Indonesians. They criticize the program as part of "an attempt to wipe out the West Papuans in a slow-motion genocide". There is open conflict between migrants, the state, and indigenous groups due to differences in culture—particularly in administration, and cultural topics such as nudity, food and sex. Religion is also a problem as Papuans are predominantly Christian or hold traditional tribal beliefs while the non-Papuan settlers are mostly Muslim. A number of Indonesians have taken Papuan children and sent them to Islamic religious schools.
The recorded population growth rates in Papua are exceptionally high due to migration.
Detractors of the program argue that considerable resources have been wasted in settling people who have not been able to move beyond subsistence level, with extensive damage to the environment and deracination of tribal people. However, very large scale American and Anglo-Australian strip mining contracts have been developed on the island, as well as other Indonesian islands.