210 entries found
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.
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.
Sanitation work in Pakistan is disproportionately assigned to non-Muslims who belong to so-called “lower castes”, often without real choice in the matter. This report explores how communities in Pakistan that are marginalized due to their caste and religious identities experience compounded discrimination in Pakistan’s sanitation sector. Pakistani authorities must abide by international human rights law and standards and extend rights to sanitation workers without discrimination on the basis of class, caste and religion through specific legislative action to address caste-based discrimination, treating sewerage work as hazardous and ensuring effective implementation of labour laws to sanitation work. 29 July 2025 Index Number: ASA 33/0120/2025 Report by Amnesty International
The report is focused on contemporary forms of slavery affecting persons belonging to ethnic, religious and linguistic minority communities. In that context, the Special Rapporteur identifies the main causes of contemporary forms of slavery affecting these groups and the main manifestations, such as chattel slavery; forced and bonded labour; domestic servitude; sexual slavery; child and forced marriage; and child labour.
Dalit activists gathered in Geneva to take part in the pre-session for the Universal Periodic Review of India – scheduled for November 2022. Rahul Singh, the Director of the National Dalit Movement for Justice-NCDHR, an IDSN member organisation was present at the session. Mr. Singh engaged with multiple stakeholders throughout to enhance the understanding of the human rights situation and caste discrimination in India.
Joint submission by IDSN, DSN Finland, DSN Norway, ARISA and IMADR.
This is part of a 24-part series starting next week, covering the sanitation crisis in each Indian state. Each part will be accompanied by a visual documentary on the specific state, highlighting the effects of the Swachh Bharat Mission and the continuation of manual scavenging in India.
Survey by the SR on contemporary forms of slavery
The links between caste and hazardous forms of sanitation work were highlighted by speakers at the Sanitation Workers Forum 2021 from 29 November – 2 December. Participants at the forum urged that immediate steps are taken to ensure the safety and dignity of millions of sanitation workers worldwide – and ensure social protections.
In a controversial move, which runs contrary to the current Modi government policy, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which falls under the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in a new report has asked the Government of India (GoI) to ensure that the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act 2015 – called anti-atrocities Act – should be applied to not just those Dalits which are supposed to part of Hindu religion.
But What Was She Wearing? is India’s first feature-length documentary film shot by a all women crew that is centered on the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act of 2013 and its deficiencies in enforcement.
In connection with their participation in the 48 th Human Rights Council session, states are encouraged to consider the ongoing and systemic practice of discrimination based on work and descent, also known as caste-based discrimination, affecting more than 260 million people globally.
Treating occupational safety for sanitation workers as a technical issue about personal protective equipment is not enough to understand the various elements involved, from changing behaviour to the larger context of sanitation workers’ lives.
Two labourers died after getting into the sewerage lines of GHMC takes the lid off the saga of negligence by contractors and government officials towards human lives.
A Joint Civil Society* Contribution to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) for the adoption of the List of Issues Prior to Reporting on India has regretted that despite the abolition of untouchability enshrined in the Indian Constitution, and a constitutional formal prohibition of discrimination on the ground base of race or caste, under the Constitution, Dalits and other communities affected by discrimination based on descent, including Adivasis, still face de facto discrimination.
Profile on Ashif Shaikh.
Many women in India continue to be engaged in manual cleaning of dry latrines, one of the most inhuman and undignified forms of manual scavenging, despite its legal prohibition. Watch how societal discrimination and systemic apathy lead to challenges in the rehabilitation of women engaged in manual scavenging, and how we can support their journey towards dignified and sustainable alternative livelihoods.
