A/59/258 justice system. This is due to persistent racism in many societies, ignorance of indigenous cultures, the failure by official State institutions to accept linguistic and cultural differences and ignorance of indigenous law and customs. As a result, indigenous people tend to be overrepresented in the criminal justice system, which reflects the prevailing inequality and injustice. 30. The justice system is also quite frequently used to suppress indigenous communities’ protests and acts of resistance in defence of their rights. In many cases, socially and politically motivated demonstrations by indigenous people have been declared illegal. During the period under review, the Special Rapporteur received many reports of serious failures to ensure the right to due process of socalled “indigenous people” and disturbing accounts from people who claim to have been subjected to various forms of physical and psychological abuse while in detention; this situation is even more serious in the case of indigenous women. 31. The Special Rapporteur therefore recommends that governments should carry out sweeping reviews and, where necessary, reforms of their justice systems in order to protect the rights of indigenous peoples more effectively. These reforms should ensure, inter alia, respect for indigenous peoples’ customary law; the establishment of alternative legal mechanisms; respect for their language and culture in the courts and tribunals and, generally speaking, throughout the justice system; and greater participation of indigenous people in the reform process. The Special Rapporteur has also recommended to Governments that the many reports of abuse of indigenous people by the security forces should be investigated in order to put an end to the impunity with which such acts are quite often committed. D. Poverty and access to basic services 32. In most countries, indigenous people are among the poorest social groups and their standard of living is considered to be below average in many ways. Studies have shown that they face high infant mortality rates, below-average levels of nutrition, inadequate public services, difficulty of access to social welfare agencies, social services of a quality below the recommended norm, serious health problems, inadequate housing and accommodations and, overall, a low level of human development indicators. In confirmation of other information which the Special Rapporteur has received regarding adequate housing as a key aspect of the right to a decent standard of living, a position asserted by the Commission on Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur notes that the quality of indigenous people’s housing is generally far below the minimum recommended by international organizations. This is true not only in rural areas, but also in the cities. 33. One of the recurrent patterns noted, and a source of concern for the Special Rapporteur, is the relationship between ethnic origin and poverty. In Guatemala, for example, the departments in which there is the highest concentration of indigenous people are also those which experience the greatest poverty and extreme poverty. At the time of his visit, 65 per cent of the indigenous population had no access to a water supply network, over 80 per cent were not connected to sewerage systems and half were not connected to the electricity grid, according to the United Nations Human Rights Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA). One reason for the increase in rural poverty among indigenous people in recent years is the fall in world coffee prices; coffee is one of the traditional export products most widely 10