IWGIA and IDSN Press release calls on the participants in the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen to address discrimination against hundreds of millions of Dalit and indigenous women. call on the participants in the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen to address discrimination against hundreds of millions of Dalit and indigenous women. IWGIA and IDSN call on the participants in the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen to address discrimination against hundreds of millions of Dalit and indigenous women.
By Navsarjan Trust and the International Dalit Solidarity Network
Three Dalit human rights defenders spoke at the UN Forum on Minority Issues. Durga Sob, from Nepal, and Manjula Pradeep and Ramesh Nathan from India, delivered strong statements on the dismal state of access to justice for Dalits and the mistreatment of Dalits in the criminal justice system.
REPORT - Caste and Gender-Based Forced and Bonded Labour from UN HRC29 IDSN SIDE-EVENT 18th June 2015, 17.00-18.30
Briefing note including cases and quotes.
Jacoby, Hanan G. & Mansuri, Ghazala, 2011. "Crossing boundaries : gender, caste and schooling in rural Pakistan," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5710, The World Bank.
When the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) convenes to discuss challenges that affect the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women at its 59th session in March 2015, there is an urgent need to address the link between caste and the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and violence faced by Dalit women.
IDSN have in February 2014 issued: Recommendations on the issue of caste discrimination to the UN Human Rights Council 28th Session (March 2015) and Information on Dalit women in relation to the 59th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (March 2015)
Dalit activists spoke at the UN Forum on Minority Issues to highlight the issue of violence against Dalits in South Asia and the lack of access to justice for victims. They also pointed to ways forward in redressing and preventing these crimes.
India on Tuesday changed the word caste to “social origin” in the draft Asian and Pacific ministerial declaration on advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment at the conference under way here to review the goals of the Beijing platform for action 20 years later.
Members of Indian civil society participating in the United Nations-Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) conference in Bangkok have alleged that the official delegation from India insisted that the word ‘caste’ not be mentioned in the outcome document of the meet. The conference, centred around womens’ issues in Asia and the Pacific, was aimed at setting out a fresh agenda for the 20-year anniversary of the Beijing Conference (Beijing 20+) in 2015.
“I used to throw up all the time because I could not take the smell,” says Sevanti Bai, recalling the many decades she worked as a manual scavenger in Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh. Convinced by others in her community and the law which prohibits manual scavenging, she quit in 2007. Since then, she and her family have struggled, making ends meet, through odd jobs, working in the fields and cleaning grains.
Manual scavenging refers to the practice of manually cleaning, carrying, disposing or handling in any manner, human excreta from dry latrines and sewers. Since 1993, key legislations have been enacted prohibiting employment of people as manual scavengers, banning the construction of dry latrines and providing rehabilitation. Yet, a significant proportion of an estimated 2.6 million dry latrines in India continue to be cleaned manually.