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At the 29th session of the UN Human Rights Council, IDSN, with a number of sponsors, held a parallel event on “Caste and gender-based forced and bonded labour”.The event included a keynote video address by the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of Slavery, Ms. Urmila Bhoola and allowed for a constructive dialogue as well as a sharing of information and recommendations between the ILO, UN agencies, civil society and States.
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Women being beaten, raped, stripped naked and paraded through their villages and a rape case as barbaric as the 2012 Nirbhaya case. These and a whole host of other atrocities were what the women marching for self-respect, and to end violence against Dalit and Adivasi women in the state of Odisha, India, came across on their path to justice.
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A rapid assessment report of the situation of Dalit communities following the earthquakes in Nepal, has found that Dalits are discriminated in the distribution of post-earthquake relief materials, receiving less aid than those from castes ranking higher in Nepal’s caste system. Read also the article Report: Dalits short-changed in aid delivery in Nepal and an report from Amnesty International as we as the European Parliament urgency resolution on the situation in Nepal raising concern for caste discrimination.
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Reducing inequality and ’leaving no one behind” are paramount within the SDG framework.The zero draft outcome document of the Post 2015 SDG however gives no recognition to more than a quarter of a billion people discriminated and marginalised on the basis of caste.
An SDG appeal has been launched by the Asian Dalit Rights Forum (ADRF) and co-signed by IDSN and dozens of other organisations, urging that caste discrimination be noted as a major cause of poverty and inquality, which must be taken into account in the outcome document.
Read the SDG Appeal
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An IDSN team of staff and board members presented current thematic challenges and recommendations in exchanges on 16 June with the EU Human Rights Working Group (COHOM) in the Council of the EU, and the European External Action Service. The team urged for the adoption of an EU policy on the prevention and elimination of caste-based discrimination, EU high- level public diplomacy on caste-based discrimination and support to initiatives at multilateral level, proportionate with the scale and consequences of this human rights issue. EU officials specifically noted the importance of the SDG process, the forthcoming UPR of Nepal and non-discrimination in relief and reconstruction in Nepal.
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At the May 2015 Meeting of the NGO Committee, India continued to cause a deferral of IDSN’s application for UN consultative (ECOSOC) status by asking yet another set of repetitive questions. On 28 May, IDSN Executive Director, Rikke Nöhrlind presented the case at an ISHR event on “Strengthening NGO participation and the right to freedom of association at the UN: Current challenges and opportunities for reform” held at the Australian mission in New York.
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Dalit children in Pakistan suffer grave human rights violations. IDSN and the Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network (PDSN) have submitted a joint alternative NGO report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 72nd PSWG 5-9 October 2015 review, highlighting the key issues faced by these children.
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The reports raise grave concerns for atrocities and injustice against Dalits in India and for the failure of the police and judicial systems as well as caste-based slavery and discrimination in education and in Nepal and Pakistan for widespread discrimination against Dalits and forced and bonded labour. Read the caste extracts from the report.
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The International Labour Organisation have now released the ILO Resource Handbook, a very useful tool in combating caste-based forced labour, and have also made a short summary of the handbook.
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A paper by Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi on inclusion of Dalits in the workforce. Prepared in collaboration with International Labour Organization (ILO) for the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN).
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- Millions of Indian children are being denied school education due to discrimination (Jayshree Bajoria, Human Rights Watch) - As the World Education Forum sets the new global education agenda, India has a unique opportunity to help the marginalised children in the country.
- How the Right to Education is failing the very children it was meant to benefit - More than 75% of those out of schools are either Dalits, Adivasis or Muslims (Scroll.in)
- Are we still in dark age? Children of cobblers treated like dirt in Magura school, Bangladesh (Parittran)
- Racial and caste oppression have many similarities (The Conversation)
- Urgent Appeal: Dalit youth brutally attacked and murdered over ringtone - HRDA India have issued an urgent appeal for action in relation to this case where a Dalit youth was killed for having and Ambedkar song as his ringtone. See also Dalit youth brutally killed in Maharashtra for saving Ambedkar song as ringtone (The Indian Express)
- Dalit child beaten and Dalits attacked by 50 men because a child’s ball fell into an RSS (dominant caste) campus - police neglect to protect (Scroll.in)
- Action alert: a 17.1 % increase in crimes against Dalits (Catch News)
- How land disputes are fuelling caste clashes in Rajasthan (BBC)
- Dalit Christians file complaint with UN against the Vatican - Accuse Church of rampant caste-based discrimination (UCAN India)
- Dalit Christians allege neglect, demand equal rights in churches (The Hindu)
- In India, a Broken System Leaves a ‘Broken’ People Powerless (IPS) - "Men would shuffle in and out of my room at night as if I had no right over my body, only they did. It broke me down completely." -- A 27-year-old Dalit woman, forced to serve as a 'temple slave' in South India
- Dalit women stripped, beaten, paraded naked in UP village (India Today) - Villagers of Shahjahanpur's Hareva in Uttar Pradesh attacked the five Dalit women because their daughter had allegedly eloped with a Dalit's son.
- The hidden injuries of caste: south Indian tea workers and economic crisis (Open Democracy)
- In Bollywood, storylines remain backward on caste (The Hindu)
- A village which lived in harmony is now flared with communal tension (The Times Of India)
- Dalit brothers, who cracked IIT, were tormented for their caste (Deccan Herald)
- Dalit women and village justice in rural India (Kashmir Times)
- Booklet on govt schemes for SC, ST & Minorities released (The Tribune)
- Atrocity cases rise, conviction rate remains low in Marathwada (The Times of India)
- In Nepal, a perilous road to assess quake damage and relief needs (LA Times)
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