3170 entries found
On 19 June, Les Forums France Inde organised a round table on Dalits, caste discrimination and the persistence of untouchability in contemporary India. The discussion addressed Dalit exclusion in education, employment, public spaces and access to justice, as well as discrimination ranging from everyday contempt to severe violence, often with impunity. The panel brought together South Asia scholar Christophe Jaffrelot, writer Ari Gautier, graphic designer Ajitesh Lokhande and author and filmmaker Valentin Henault, moderated by Eléonore Gratton. Speakers reflected on Dalit perspectives, strategies of resistance, the continuing relevance of Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s thought, and the role of movements in India and the diaspora in advancing dignity, equality and emancipation.
IDSN welcomes the historic progress made in New York towards explicit legal protection against caste discrimination. The proposed bill A6920/S6531 sought to prohibit caste discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations, and advanced further than any previous caste protection legislation in the state. While the bill did not move to the floor during this legislative session, it secured significant support from legislators and civil society organisations, and helped bring caste discrimination into public and legislative debate.
Can mental health care address trauma without addressing caste? At a conference in Bengaluru, the National Federation of Dalit Women and The Blue Dawn brought practitioners, activists and artists together to explore care rooted in social justice. During the conference, NFDW also celebrated 30 years of its journey by honouring 30 anti-caste individuals and organisations from India who have worked closely with NFDW over the years.
Dalit feminist leaders from India and Nepal met in Bangalore, India, for a week of shared learning and organising. The National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) and the Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO), both IDSN members, strengthened connections across borders and explored the challenges facing Dalit women and girls through capacity-strengthening sessions, exchanges between movement leaders and exposure visits to community initiatives in Bangalore, fostering cross-border feminist solidarity and shared learning.
At a UN Human Rights Council side event on the right to sanitation, Dalit human rights defender Manjula Pradeep highlighted how caste and gender discrimination shape who bears the burden of unsafe and degrading sanitation work. Drawing attention to the risks faced by Dalit women engaged in hazardous sanitation work in India, she urged governments to end manual scavenging in practice, ensure safe working conditions and alternative livelihoods, and include sanitation workers and Dalit women in decision-making. “Sanitation cannot be called dignified if it depends upon another person’s indignity,” she said. The event was co-organised by IDSN and reinforced that progress on sanitation must be measured not only by access to facilities, but by whether systems protect everyone’s health, dignity, equality, and rights.
IDSN brought together #DalitVoicesForJustice, UN experts, civil society and Member States for our HRC62 side-event, Caste, Gender and Power: #DalitVoicesForJustice on 2 July at the UN Human Rights Council. The event highlighted the urgent need to explicitly address caste and gender discrimination as a root cause of widespread human rights violations across South Asia. This was underscored by powerful addresses from the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Dr. Ashwini K.P. and the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Prof. Nicolas Levrat.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has issued wide-ranging recommendations to India to strengthen action against caste discrimination, reaffirming that caste-based discrimination is fully covered by the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Following its August 2026 review of India, CERD raised concerns over persistent segregation, caste-based violence, discrimination against Dalit women, barriers to justice, manual scavenging, bonded labour and discrimination in education and access to services. The Committee called for stronger implementation of existing protections, improved access to remedies and better data on the situation of Dalits. Ahead of the review, IDSN and Minority Rights Group International submitted a joint alternative report documenting continuing caste-based discrimination and gaps in implementation of previous CERD recommendations.
The EU’s 2025 Human Rights and Democracy in the World country reports include several references of relevance to caste-affected communities in South Asia. In Bangladesh, the report explicitly identifies discrimination against Dalits as a longstanding human rights concern. In Nepal, it highlights concerns that Dalits and other marginalised groups have not been meaningfully included in transitional justice processes and could be excluded from current reform debates, while also noting the continuing underrepresentation of women and minorities in political life. In India, caste is not addressed as a systemic issue, although the report notes continuing violence against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, alongside restrictions affecting civil society. The Pakistan chapter does not explicitly mention caste or Dalits, but raises related concerns including discrimination against minorities, child marriage, child labour, labour rights, and violence against women.
The European Parliament has adopted a resolution condemning forced conversion and child marriage in Pakistan and calling for stronger protection of girls from marginalised communities. Significantly, the resolution explicitly recognises discrimination based on caste, gender and religion among the root causes that must be addressed and calls for targeted protection, improved access to education and social protection, stronger investigations and access to justice. IDSN has raised these concerns over several years through submissions to UN mechanisms, regularly shared with EU institutions, documenting how forced conversion and marriage disproportionately affect Dalit girls. Earlier this year an IDSN delegation of Dalit activists visited Brussels to brief key decision-makers while Pirbhu Satyani of the Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network raised forced conversion and marriage during the European Parliament’s April 2026 hearing on caste discrimination in South Asia. The resolution also calls on the EU and Member States to raise these issues systematically in their dialogue with Pakistan, including in relation to Pakistan’s GSP+ trade preferences.
A delegation of Dalit human rights defenders visited Brussels in July to urge stronger EU action on caste-based discrimination in South Asia. In meetings with EU institutions, Members of the European Parliament, and civil society organisations, delegates called for Dalit rights to be integrated more systematically into EU human rights dialogues, development cooperation, trade relations and diplomatic engagement. The visit also explored opportunities to strengthen parliamentary attention and civil society advocacy on caste discrimination.
Published by the Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO), this report draws on official records, civil society data, media coverage, and consultations to examine how caste and gender intersect in violence against women and girls in Nepal. FEDO documented 439 incidents involving Dalit women and girls across 18 districts, including domestic violence, child marriage, caste discrimination, and sexual violence. The report identifies barriers to reporting and justice, and calls for better data disaggregated by caste and gender, stronger survivor support, and more effective enforcement of legal protections.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative’s (HRMI) 2026 India report highlights a range of human rights concerns affecting Dalits. Based on assessments from human rights experts and practitioners in India, the report identifies Dalit communities as particularly vulnerable to violations of physical integrity rights, while Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians are specifically identified as being at risk of arbitrary arrest. Hindu Dalits are also reported to face restrictions on freedom of religion and belief, including discrimination in places of worship. On economic and social rights, the report points to displacement, exclusion, residential discrimination and segregation, as well as people being forced into manual, caste-based work. The findings form part of HRMI’s broader assessment of continuing human rights concerns in India.
ALTERNATIVE REPORT TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (CERD) CASTE-BASED DISCRIMINATION REVIEW OF THE COMBINED 20th AND 21st PERIODIC REPORTS OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDIA - MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP INTERNATIONAL (MRG) and INTERNATIONAL DALIT SOLIDARITY NETWORK (IDSN) 118th Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 10 to 25 August 2026
The 2025 Institute of Public Enterprise study, supported by India’s National Human Rights Commission, examines girl child labour in textile and garment clusters in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and highlights caste as an important structural factor shaping vulnerability and working conditions. Drawing on earlier research, it specifically notes the recruitment of young Dalit girls, including migrants and girls from poor rural areas, into Tamil Nadu spinning mills under multi-year arrangements linked to wages and end-of-contract payments, where restrictions on movement and poor living and working conditions have been documented (p. 36). The study’s own survey data show that 33.6% of the 720 women workers surveyed in Tamil Nadu were recorded as Scheduled Caste (SC), while 13.9% of 790 respondents in Karnataka were SC; the analysis finds statistically significant relationships between caste and both duration of employment and daily income, including evidence in Tamil Nadu that workers classified as general or forward caste received higher daily incomes than other caste groups (pp. 60–61, 86, 104–105, 138). ([NHRC][1]) More broadly, the report concludes that the expansion of the textile industry has been accompanied by caste, gender, class, and religious discrimination, with marginalised communities excluded from higher-skilled opportunities, and argues that girl child labour cannot be understood solely as a consequence of poverty but must also be addressed in relation to deeper social hierarchies and discriminatory structures (p. 159).
At the Asia Pacific Social Forum, held in Bangkok from 1–5 November 2025, Nepali Dalit civil society organisations used the regional platform to strengthen advocacy against caste-based discrimination and build wider alliances across Asia Pacific and Europe. The report now published highlights the initiative The Roadmap to End Caste Discrimination in Asia Pacific Region, which brought together civil society leaders to discuss reducing inequality, strengthening social movements, promoting implementation of legal and constitutional protections, investing in education and expanding digital campaigning.
The report Dalit Women’s Long Road to Justice: Monitoring 10 Years of SDG 5 in India through Caste, Gender and SRHR Lens, by All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch - AIDMAM, offers an evidence-based assessment of progress and persistent gaps in achieving gender equality for Dalit women in India over the past decade. Drawing on official data, existing research and primary interviews conducted in 2025 in Bihar, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Telangana, the report shows how caste-based patriarchy continues to shape discrimination, violence, harmful practices, barriers to justice and unequal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
IDSN facilitated a series of advocacy meetings and outreach activities in Brussels involving Dalit human rights defenders that took place in December 2025. The visit created an important opportunity to bring first-hand perspectives from South Asia into exchanges with EU institutions on caste-based discrimination, human rights and democratic governance and contribute to ongoing strategy work on caste discrimination.
