In order to provide women migrant workers with a life of dignity, security, and a sense of recognition at their workplaces, the three primary stakeholders of the garment sector supply chain need to work quickly and collaboratively.
Caste references in Human Rights Watch's World Report 2020.
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.
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.
A petition by DHRD to call for the the United Nations to Build Forward Better on Descent and Caste-Based Discrimination.
A survey of domestic workers revealed across six northeastern Indian states, a large majority of maids, cooks and other domestic staff worked seven days a week and were not given a single day of annual leave without having their pay docked.
Dalit Voices is a video series that seeks to keep the discussion of caste-based gender violence alive after the Hathras gang rape and murder of September 2020. We bring you Dalit womxn activists from India and around the world to talk about what is urgently required in the work towards ending caste atrocities in India.
India’s Sanitation Workers seek immediate help from the government, as they fight for better safety gears and equal treatment.
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.
The life of a Dalit woman in Punjab is a true picture of the intersectional reality of caste, class and gender. Their experiences represent clear evidence of widespread exploitation, violence and indecent inhumane treatment.
Indian workers in factories supplying the supermarket chains Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury's, and the fashion brand Ralph Lauren, told the BBC they are being subjected to exploitative conditions.
Women engaged in manual scavenging face the double burden of caste and gender-based discrimination. Let us pledge to support their dignity, health and rights. A film by Nirman Chowdhury, produced by Sudharak Olwe, for WaterAid India. The first part of a series.
The focus of this report is to use evidence-based information to highlight the issue of child labour in the sugarcane sector within its key socio-economic intersections such as gender, caste, migration and structural inequalities in the Indian agriculture sector. Children are pushed into hazardous labour due to structural poverty amongst the harvesters, most of whom are Tribals, Adivasi and Dalit. The intersections of migration, debt bondage, gender-based risks and structured social inequalities such as that of Dalits and Adivasis together play a role in making the problem of child labour more complex. All of these cross cutting issues must be kept in mind when addressing child labour in the sugarcane supply chain and in other agricultural crops in India.
In August 2020, Global March Against Child Labour released an evidence-based report, providing an overview of the situation of child labour with a gender lens in sugarcane harvesting in India. The report highlights that children are pushed into hazardous child labour due to structural poverty among harvesters, most of whom are from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, also referred to as DBA (Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi/Tribal) in this article, because of exploitative hiring practices resulting in debt bondage. It was found that traditional gender-based norms contributed significantly to child labour by normalising unequal wages and unpaid family work.
The FEDO Quarterly Issue 45: July-Sept 2020
Issues hidden behind the exodus of India’s migrant labour under the Covid-19 lockdown.
Independent study report by Dhamma Darshan Nigam and Sheeva Dubeysee press coverage.
Independent study report by Dhamma Darshan Nigam and Sheeva Dubey).
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.
A collection of testimonies has been published that were received in response to Ambedkar King Study Circle’s call to record and share individuals’ experiences of casteist practices in the USA. They document the feelings of discomfort, exclusion, shock, pain, and humiliation experienced by those that are subjected to various casteist practices at school, at the workplace, in their neighborhood, at social gatherings, and in their lives as parents.