Pakistan: Dalits call for affirmative action
The recent wave of kidnappings and forced marriages of Dalit girls has spread fear in Pakistan’s Dalit community, which is already extremely marginalised.
The recent wave of kidnappings and forced marriages of Dalit girls has spread fear in Pakistan’s Dalit community, which is already extremely marginalised.
On 9th of May thousands of Dalits and Adivasis (Tribals) from all over India stormed up to the Parliament in New Delhi to demand their rightful economic share in the state and union budgets.
In Nepal, Dalits are protesting the preliminary results of the constitution drafting process as Dalit concerns have not been duly reflected in the proposed 1st draft.
Bangladesh Dalit Excluded Rights Movement (BDERM) demanded specific allocations development of Dalit communities in the upcoming National Budget. BDERM raised the demands in a seminar organized at Dhaka Reporters Unity on May 5th.
The IDSN Annual Report 2011 sums up the many positive developments in the struggle to end caste discrimination that the year has brought and outlines some of the remaining challenges that will keep us all engaged in this struggle for many years to come.
Dalit human rights defenders from India, Nepal and Bangladesh voiced their concerns about effective political participation of Dalit women at the 4th session of the UN Forum on Minority Issues. The thematic focus of the session, which was held in Geneva on 29-30 November 2011, was “Guaranteeing the rights of minority women”.
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.
IDSN have launched a YouTube Channel on www.youtube.com/IDSNVideo
The IDSN 2010 Annual Report is now published and ready for download.
The IDSN January 2011 newsletter includes news that: Campaigners for Dalit rights finished 2010 on a strong note with lots of activities around Human Rights Day on 10 December and participation in various international events. In India, terrible atrocities against Dalits continued to make headlines, and in Nepal, the efforts to include strong provisions against caste discrimination in the constitution gained further momentum. The United Kingdom move closer to making caste discrimination illegal, as government commissioned research provided evidence of this form of discrimination in British society.