SYDNEY, May 25 (Reuters) - Dozens of Australian indigenous leaders walked out of a national meeting on Thursday in protest against a plan to accept constitutional recognition, indigenous leader Geoff Clark told Reuters.
Some 250 Aboriginal Australian leaders are meeting this week at the sacred landmark of Uluru to decide how the country's first inhabitants, who date back about 50,000 years before British colonisers arrived, should be recognised.
Clark said an emerging majority support for constitutional recognition had prompted about 50 to leave in protest. Some leaders want a treaty with the government rather than constitutional change.
There are about 700,000 Aborigines in a population of 23 million but they suffer disproportionately high rates of suicide, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and imprisonment, tracking near the bottom in almost every economic and social indicator.
Constitutional recognition of Aborigines is a complex issue in a country which previously administered its indigenous people under flora and fauna laws.