The UN Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) examined Nepal on 20 July, and recommended the Government to take specific measures to increase the “very low” political representation of Dalit and indigenous women at national and local level.
It is with heavy hearts that we bring the news that Suvash Darnal, a key leader in the Dalit movement, has passed away in a traffic accident in the United States.
Imagine sitting in your home, it’s ten o´clock in the morning, and you suddenly see a bulldozer, with its jaws wide open, drive up to your front door. You are told that you have thirty minutes to collect your belongings and get out of the family home you have lived in for decades, before it is completely destroyed, reduced to a worthless pile of rubble.
In a bold speech on the 17 June at the Conference of the State Welfare and Social Justice Ministers in New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged ministers to be more vigilant and do everything in their power to implement the SC/ST act that is meant to protect the human rights of Dalits and Adivasis. The PM paid particular attention to the on-going issue of manual scavenging which he called, “One of the darkest blots on our development process” saying,
The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) and the Housing and Land Rights Network in India have sent out a press release calling for the state and central government to act on an imminent threat of force and violence directed towards Dalit villagers. The villagers have been peacefully protesting the take over of their land by the Korean based POSCO steel production company, threatening their livelihoods. Despite protests being non-violent, the police have been terrorising the villagers and threatening them and the press release describes a tense situation where it is feared that the Dalit villagers may face brute force and false charges from the police.
In a report stressing the need for better protection against discrimination for Roma and victims of caste systems, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Mr. Githu Muigai, warns that the rights of an estimated 250 million people across the globe are at risk because they are subjected to discrimination on the basis of caste or other social systems based on inherited status.
The National Human Rights Commission in India has directed the Tamil Nadu government to compensate five Dalit human rights defenders who were unlawfully arrested in August 2010. The Commission has held that the police officers have committed grave human rights violations against the victims, and that it is a case fit for payment of compensation to the victims. The five human rights defenders were trainees at People’s Watch Tamil Nadu and where on a fact finding mission regarding allegations of torture. The NHRC has also found that the torture allegations they were investigating were true.
’Outcast’ – the repressed people of Asia', released in May 2011, depicts the destitution, injustice, poverty and exclusion suffered by hundreds of millions of people in South Asia, as well as small glimmers of hope and empowerment. The photographs and stories about Dalits in Asia were collected by the Danish photographer Jakob Carlsen, over several trips to the region. It is a haunting read, presenting images of a human rights situation so dire you cannot help but reflect on how this could still be taking place in the 21st century.
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) recommends the Government of Yemen to adopt a national action plan to combat the social discrimination and marginalization faced by the Al-Akhdam people, considered 'untouchable' in Yemen.
The National Conference of Dalit Women organised by the Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO) took place in Kathmandu from the 11-13th May. The conference brought together Dalit women activists from 75 districts of Nepal; Human Rights activists, constitutional assembly members, researchers, representatives from UN and bilateral agencies and I/NGOs, members of the media; and international delegates from, India, Bangladesh, UK, Sweden, Hongkong, and Denmark.
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