240 entries found
On 14 February 2025, IDSN, Arisa and Homeworkers Worldwide hosted a side-session at the OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector. The discussion addressed the exploitation of Dalit workers in South Asia’s garment and leather industries that form part of global supply chains. The panel featured voices from the frontlines of labour rights, each offering insights into caste discrimination, forced and bonded labour and caste and gender-based violence at work.
This IDSN submission highlights the pervasive issue of child labour among Dalit children in South Asia, particularly in India, where caste-based discrimination and systemic poverty exacerbate their vulnerability. Children as young as five are subjected to bonded labour in brick kilns, hazardous work in agriculture, forced labour in the textile industry, and domestic servitude, often under exploitative schemes like the “Sumangali” system. The IDSN underscores that these children, especially girls, face compounded risks of trafficking, sexual violence, and early marriage, which further entrench their marginalisation. To address these issues, the IDSN calls for the strict enforcement of existing laws, the elimination of caste-based discrimination in education and public services, and the implementation of comprehensive social protection measures to support vulnerable families and prevent child labour.
Cottonseed survey found ” 87% of the families of working children came from lower castes such as tribal people and dalits … Cotton seed producers usually employed children on a long-term contract basis by paying advances or loans to their parents. A survey of 320 chil- dren working on cotton seed farms revealed that about 95% of the children were in debt bondage: the children were effectively working off their parents’ debts in conditions of near slavery”
factsheet on Caste-based Gender Violence against Dalit Women and Girls in India. The factsheet is based on data analysis of the National Crime Records Bureau of India. The analysis concludes that the rise in atrocities against Dalit women and minor girls indicates that the existing laws are not effectively or appropriately enforced.The data that is caste disaggregated reflects this grim reality, while there is still much crime data that remains to be disaggregated - masking even bigger issues. Additionally low conviction, lesser punishment and higher disposal of cases related to Dalit women and girls, are found to be important factors to consider while working for prevention of violence against Dalit women and girls. The report also highlights several concrete cases of violations and the miscarriage of justice.
The Working Group on the UPR reviewed India in November 2022 and the outcome report was adopted at the Human Rights Council 52 March session in 2023. This report includes recommendations on Dalits, caste, hate speech, racism, water and sanitation, women and girls' rights and many more.
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.
The Sindh Human Rights Commission organised a one-day consultation with key stakeholders at Hotel Avari Towers, Karachi, on August 18, 2022. The purpose of the consultation was to identify the gaps in the legislation covering labour rights of sanitation workers and build a consensus to gear efforts toward driving legislative interventions for the inclusion of sanitation workers in the labour laws. The event was organised in technical partnership with The Knowledge Forum.
How violation of the fundamental rights of a citizen dents our entire society is often ignored by the power structures in the country. This is especially so when it translates into marginalization in education of children belonging to persecuted communities that endure gross discrimination and systemic exploitation.
This report is an attempt by Dasra and the India Climate Collaborative to draw attention to the unique space that girls and women occupy in the climate crisis today.
Tomoya Obokata, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, today welcomed progress in strengthening Mauritania’s legal framework and building the political will to combat slavery, but cautioned that much work still lay ahead.
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.
The most recent Global Multidimensional Poverty Index includes caste as an important indicator of poverty in India. According to this method of measuring poverty, progress has been made, but Dalits and Adivasis are still disproportionately poor and women and girls are lagging behind.
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.
This chapter, written by Philip E. Veerman, reviews and critiques the work of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child through the lens of caste- and descent-based discrimination. The chapter explores both the promise and the limitations of the work of the Committee in addressing discrimination that is, in many cases, fundamentally woven into the cultural and the religious practices of a society. In particular, it explores the promise and limitations of the Committee’s work in India, Nepal, and Mauritania to combat caste- and descent-based discrimination, inter alia, through its Concluding Observations. The chapter calls attention to the rights of children who are considered ‘untouchables’ or ‘outcastes.’ The chapter shows the challenges the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee) confronts in addressing such discrimination. The chapter concludes by exploring ways the CRC Committee further the potential of the CRC to be an instrument of change.
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.
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.
