James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous human rights, attends a news conference in Brasilia, August 25, 2008. (Jamil Bittar/Reuters)

A group of 4,000 Australian Aborigines asked the United Nations to grant them refugee status Wednesday, saying that government-imposed measures to curb alcohol and sexual abuse in their communities have made them outcasts in their own country, according to Reuters.

Richard Downs, a spokesperson for the Alyawarra people in central Australia, made the request of James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous human rights, who was on a fact-finding tour in Canberra.

Australia's former conservative government launched an initiative in 2007 to deal with widespread child sex abuse and chronic alcoholism in the remote outback.

The move included sending extra police, soldiers and medical teams to aboriginal communities. Alcohol and pornography were banned and welfare payments were revised so that they could only be spent on food, clothing and health care.

About 460,000 Aborigines live in Australia. Although only about two per cent of the population, they have disproportionately high rates of unemployment, drug abuse and domestic violence. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than that of other Australians.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, of the centre-left Australian Labor Party, said he has no plans to dismantle the controversial intervention but would review its operation.

Anaya's visit, the first-ever such UN fact-finding mission to Aborigine communities, which had long been opposed by Rudd's predecessor, is part of that review.