Minority Rights Group International (MRG) campaigns worldwide with around 150 partners in over 50 countries to ensure that disadvantaged minorities and indigenous peoples, often the poorest of the poor, can make their voices heard.

Minorities that are of concern to MRG are defined as ‘disadvantaged ethnic, national, religious, linguistic or cultural groups which are fewer in number than the rest of the population and which may wish to maintain and develop their identity.

Through our programmes, publications, advocacy, legal cases, consultancies, training and education, and our action in the media, we support minorities and indigenous peoples as they strive to defend their rights – to the lands they live on, to the languages they speak, to the beliefs they practise, to the cultures they enjoy, to equal opportunities in education and employment, and to full participation in public life.

We understand how discrimination based on age, class, gender and disability can have multiple impacts on disadvantaged minorities and indigenous peoples. Our campaigns target governments and communities to eradicate such attitudes.

MRG has over 50 years’ experience of working with non-dominant ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, and we bring a long-term view of these issues to bear in all the work we do.

We work with minorities and indigenous peoples as diverse as Batwa in Central Africa, Roma in Europe, Christians in Iraq, and Dalits in India and Nepal to name but a few.

MRG is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) with an international governing Council that meets twice a year. We have consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), observer status with the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights, and are registered with the Organization of American States.

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