Over the past months the campaign to end caste discrimination in key South Asian diaspora communities has gathered momentum. Anti-caste groups and activists in the US, Canada, UK and Australia have carried out targeted advocacy and made significant progress towards the goal of ensuring protections and legal recourse for those experiencing caste discrimination in South Asian communities globally.
A new-born Indian can expect to live for 69 years, just three years short of the world average. But disparities in life expectancy - the average number of years that a person can expect to live - among India's social groups have lingered and widened, according to two new studies.
Survey by the SR on contemporary forms of slavery
In Pakistan, forced marriages and forced conversions of women and girls affect Hindu and Christian minorities disproportionately. There are frequent reports that persons belonging to these minorities are kidnapped and subjugated to physical and emotional abuse involving threats of violence.
The recent controversy around actor-comedian Vir Das’s show ‘I come from two Indias’ sparked a debate around the perception of India on the international front. While Vir talked about various issues in the 6-minute monologue, he did not utter a single word against the darkest reality of India – caste dominance.
A man from west London receives a 16 week suspended prison sentence for producing and sharing caste-related hate video on social media.
At just eight years old, Jasvinder Sanghera was already promised to an older man who she had never met before. One day after school aged 14, her mother sat her down at their home and showed her the picture of a man they'd decided she would marry. Ms Sanghera refused, and fled home at just 16-years-old with a man outside of her caste. Her conservative Sikh family disowned her and she has now been estranged from them for 42 years.
The Dalit Solidarity Network – Finland (DSNFi) celebrated its tenth anniversary as an online celebration on 16 November 2020. The celebration brought together more than thirty participants from Nepal, India, UK and many parts of Finland.
Everyday casteism is an evidence gathering campaign seeking to catalogue instances of casteist behaviour, including incidents of discriminatory or caste hate speech behaviour, experienced on a day to day basis by people perceived to be ‘lower’ caste in the UK.
UN experts spoke out about the links between discrimination and slavery at the webinar “Contemporary Slavery & Racial Discrimination: Civil Society Support to Survivors during the Pandemic” organised by the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, the UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, the Geneva Human Rights Platform and the UK Mission in Geneva, on 2 December. Several experts raised concern over caste discrimination and caste-based occupations as well as the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on vulnerable groups.
Independent study report by Dhamma Darshan Nigam and Sheeva Dubeysee press coverage.
“Exclusion of caste from discrimination policies makes companies caste-blind. Emerging research suggests caste-based losses to companies are similar to those due to a lack of gender and race diversity.”
Satyajit Amin argues that the Indian diaspora needs to confront widespread casteism in their communities and renew efforts to pass anti-discrimination legislation.
DSN-UK has issued an appeal to the public, governments and companies to raise concern about the plight of Dalits during Covid-19 - "We have the opportunity to reshape the world – so raise your voice and make sure that our government is reminded that equality does not exist for all."
This documentary examines the ways in which caste discrimination manifests itself in the UK within Asian diaspora communities and the impact of caste-based exclusion on members of these communities. The video follows Parle Patel, a young British Hindu and popular YouTuber, as he interviews members of his community to get to the bottom of whether the UK has a caste problem.
In a U-turn policy change the UK Government has decided that despite reports commissioned by the Government itself finding evidence of caste-based rights violations in the UK, caste will not be included as a protected characteristic alongside race, religion and ethnicity in the UK Equalities Act.
The Special Rapporteur (SR) on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Ms. E. Tendayi Achiume, on Friday, 11 May 2018, concluded her official visit to the UK and issued her end of mission statement. During the visit the Special Rapporteur met with the UK government and Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales representatives. Ms Achiume also met with civil society in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast.