The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples last Sept. 13, with Japan among the 144 member states voting in favor.
The U.N. estimates there are more than 370 million indigenous people in some 70 countries.
To this day, however, the government has not officially recognized any ethnic group as indigenous to Japan. But for the first time, lawmakers are moving to pass a Diet resolution to recognize the Ainu before the Group of Eight summit that Japan will host in July at Toyako, Hokkaido.
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