In the forests of Jambi Province, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, more than half the indigenous Orang Rimba community lacks government-issued identification cards. Until mid-August, that meant its members could not receive COVID-19 vaccines, since the government required anyone seeking a dose to have a state-issued ID number. Even now that the rule has been changed, many Orang Rimba have not had a chance to get a shot, because like most indigenous people in Indonesia, they live in a remote area, hours away from the nearest vaccination site.
Such barriers have impeded vaccine access for indigenous communities across Indonesia. According to Rukka Sombolinggi, the secretary-general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago, just 20,000 of Indonesia’s 20 million indigenous people—or 0.1 percent—had received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of August 4.
