UNITED NATIONS: Five out of six multidimensionally poor people in India are from lower tribes or castes, according to a new analysis on global multidimensional poverty released by the United Nations on Thursday.
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.
Indians say it is important to respect all religions, but major religious groups see little in common and want to live separately
In Pakistan, sanitation workers face dangerous and dreadful conditions everyday. Unfortunately, not much has changed for sanitation workers in the country over the last many decades. An increasing numbers of sanitation workers continue to lose their lives to poor sanitation planning and management.
According to the latest census, conducted in 2017, approximately one million people were counted from the Dalit community in Pakistan, most of them living in Sindh, especially Tharparkar. A chunk of these – approximately more than 15,000 of them are dwelling in Karachi’s dilapidated, ramshackle houses in the Hindu Para locality of Chaneser Goth.
The Global Slavery Index estimates that 3,186,000 people are held in modern forms of slavery in Pakistan, ranking the country at 8th place among the world’s 167 nations with the highest prevalence of modern slavery. The most common form of modern slavery prevalent in Pakistan is bonded labour, mainly in agriculture and brick kilns sectors (production of bricks).
Need and objectives for EU intervention on sustainable corporate governance
The Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development (EMRTD) has identified five themes on which it intends to submit studies to the Human Rights Council during its mandate term. One of these studies is on Racism, racial discrimination and the right to development. Article 5 of the Declaration on the Right to Development enjoinsstates to take resolute steps to eliminate the violations of the human rights of peoples affected by racism and racial discrimination. The elimination of racism is therefore recognized as essential to fulfilling the right to development.
Manual pit-emptying – the removal of faecal sludge from pits and tanks using hands or basic tools – is a widespread practice in Bangladesh, and in other low- and middle-income countries. Despite this, little is known about the livelihoods of pit-emptiers. This paper analyses data from six cases of pit-emptying in three cities in Bangladesh, across three different operational modes: private cooperatives, government employees and self-employed workers.
Report by CREID Intersections series Religious Inequalities and Gender. Nov 2020. The theme of this special collection of papers, the lived experiences of women who belong to religious minorities, has been a blind spot both in international development policy engagement and in much of the international scholarship on women, security and peace.
Amnesty International, WaterAid and the International Dalit Solidarity Network call on authorities in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan to take immediate action to protect sanitation workers who are risking their lives on the COVID-19 frontlines.
Sanitation workers’ vital roles put them on the frontline – often forgotten – during COVID-19 lockdowns. Already marginalised in many societies, how has the pandemic affected their safety and wellbeing? Shahrukh Mirza and Andrés Hueso discuss our research with sanitation workers across South Asia, highlighting how to support them through the pandemic and beyond.
Sanitation workers have long been marginalised across South Asia because of stigma around the nature of their work and discrimination based on caste, ethnicity and religion. The COVID-19 pandemic magnified the considerable occupational and health hazards they already faced, leaving many working with limited protection and almost no formal guidance or support. To understand the nature and extent of the challenges sanitation workers have faced during lockdowns, we facilitated studies in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, through telephone interviews with sanitation workers and key informants. The study revealed common insights
In connection with their participation in the 45th 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.
“Social distancing is nothing new to us (Pakistani Christians) … People usually hate the sight of a sanitation worker, let alone coming close, shaking our hand, or eating and drinking with us. Unofficially, the caste-based ‘untouchable’ stigma remains synonymous with Christians, because over 90% of them come from what was the Dalit caste, the poorest of the poor.”
“Social distancing also has a dark and ominous side. In South Asia, where it has unfurled into a spider’s web of practices, it also directs violence, exclusion and bigotry upon marginalised people whose only ‘sin’ is caste, occupation or descent.”
In Pakistan, descendants of lower-caste Hindus who converted to Christianity centuries ago still find themselves marginalized, relegated to dirty jobs and grim fates.
DSN Statement – We strongly urge governments and companies with supply chains in South Asia, to take measures to urgently protect migrant and informal workers, including Dalits, against a loss of income, social benefits, shelter and a means to feed themselves and their families, as Covid-19 measures and repercussions threaten their lives and livelihoods.