The IDSN Ambassadors group is made up of several highly distinguished human rights advocates, who use their knowledge and skills to ensure that caste discrimination never falls off the global human rights agenda.

“The fight to end caste discrimination is at the root of some of the most horrendous human rights violations facing the world today including modern slavery, violence against women, extreme poverty and grave failures of the justice system in affected countries across the world,” says IDSN Ambassador, Professor Gay McDougall, Member the UN CERD Committee and former UN Expert. “IDSN is a leading force in bringing Dalit voices to the fore of global human rights fora and I am proud to be a catalyst for this work as part of the IDSN Ambassadors group.”

The IDSN Ambassadors are:

Ms. Rita Izsák-Ndiaye, UN CERD Committee member and former UN Expert

Professor Gay J. McDougall, Vice Chair, UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Senior Fellow and Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, Center for Race, Law and Justice, Fordham University School of Law

Mr. Maina Kiai, former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and now leading Human Rights Watch Alliances & Partnerships initiative 

Dr. Aidan McQuade, labour rights expert and former Director of Anti-Slavery International

Professor Smita Narula, Haub Distinguished Professor of International Law, Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University

Mr. Gerard Oonk, Former Director of the India Committee on the Netherlands

Mr. Peter Prove, Director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs