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IDSN’s stand at the 2021 European Development Days featured experts from South Asia – such as Monalika Tiwari and Amu Vinzuda from Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Bezwada Wilson from Safai Karmachari Andolan from India and Pirbhu Lal, represented the Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network. These experts were able to engage with participants on a multitude of topics, such as sanitation, manual scavenging and Dalit human rights. The activists also took part in various sessions across the two days.
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Speakers at a virtual multi-stakeholder interaction programme organised by the Dalit Non-Governmental Organization Federation (DNF) stressed the need for effective implementation of the recommendations made by the United Nations during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The event was attended by representatives of a wide range of diplomatic missions, NGOs and civil society leaders and human rights activists in Nepal.
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IDSN has supported an open letter to the European Parliament, European Commission and European Council calling for inclusion of marginalised communities in policy and law making when it comes to engagement on major digital platforms. The letter requests “the European Commission to publicly outline the indicators and accountability mechanisms it will adopt to ensure the Digital Services Act (DSA) mitigates and ends the harms that racialised and marginalised women face… and to outline how it will continue to mitigate Big Tech’s impact on racialised and marginalised women, above and beyond the DSA, ensuring that implementation of the mechanisms mentioned above is as robust as the legislation."
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In the latest FEDO newsletter – ‘Reaching the Unreached”, the organisation documents its work to reach Dalit communities with vital support as they struggle with the repercussions of Covid-19 and lockdowns.
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The report Get Fit: Closing gaps in the OECD Guidelines to make them fit for purpose, stresses the need to address discrimination based on caste explicitly in the OECD Guidelines that are up for revision. IDSN is working with OECD Watch and ARISA (Advocating Rights in South Asia) to ensure that these revisions take note of the prevalence of caste in Multinational Enterprises.
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“The individual demographic factors that rendered workers most likely to have their contracts terminated was being part of an ethnic minority or lower caste, and the protective factor that rendered workers in our sample least likely to have employment terminated was being part of a union”
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The report by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy Evidence Centre led by the Birmingham Centre states:
“Unsurprisingly, the hardest hit are those in low income regions (i.e. Asia, Africa and Latin America) where informal work constitutes more than 90% of their workforce. This has put them in a more precarious position as they have had no choice but to accept any job in order to survive”
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IDSN stresses that forced conversions and marriages of Dalit girls and women in Pakistan is a serious human rights challenge that must be addressed in its submission to the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.
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IDSN has submitted input on caste to the study on gender justice of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, highlighting that social (online and offline) spaces where Dalit women would normally freely exchange their views and ideas are fraught with several instances of sexist and casteist discrimination, which, intersected, impose considerable obstacles for the enjoyment of freedom of expression. In this submission IDSN offers advice on what can be done to stand in solidarity with Dalit women and be a catalyst of change.
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States affected by caste discrimination should develop specific indicators on caste and use disaggregated data for the implementation and monitoring of UN Global Goals says IDSN, in its submission to UN Special Rapporteur on Minorities report in connection with the Human Rights Council’s 47th Session.
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IDSN recommends UN member states to raise the issue of caste and Covid-19, adequate housing, violence and discrimination against women, and business and human rights – in connection with the 47th Session of the UN Human Rights Council - (21 June – 15 July 2021).
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On July 7 and 14 at 2-4 PM GMT, the Asia Floor Wage Alliance is hosting the event - Money Heist: Covid-19 Wage Theft in Garment Global Supply Chains to highlight the need to compensate workers whose wages have been unfairly cut by factories and other actors in the garment supply chains. These include many Dalit workers.
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Selected News Headlines:
Modern slavery in India: Patterns of patriarchy, politics, and “progress” (Norwegian Human Rights Fund)
“No single dimension of oppression is enough to understand the experience of, for example, Dalit migrant workers, gender non-conforming children, home based women workers or differently-abled women. Dalits and Adivasis are disproportionately represented among those oppressed, displaced, and trafficked.”
How Punjab's Dalit Labourers Are Trapped to Live a Bonded Life (The Wire)
India - “it is common in villages here to trap the poor labourers in debt and then keep them bondage for years in garb of cheap labour.”
When Violence Is The Cost Of Doing Politics (Behan Box)
India - “Women entering the political realm have always faced resistance. Over the years, the backlash has only worsened the in form of rape, assault, abduction and in many instances even death. Dalit and Adivasi women have always been at a greater risk of violence due to their marginalisation and challenge to existing caste hierarchies as some of the studies have shown.”
India's New IT Rules Do Not Conform With International Human Rights Norms : UN Special Rapporteurs (LiveLaw)
“The Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations have written to the Government of India expressing serious concerns over the new IT Rules notified to regulate social media intermediaries, streaming platforms and digital news media, They have urged the Government of India to withdraw, or reconsider certain key aspects of the Information Technology(Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021.”
Settled Habits, New Tricks: Casteist Policing Meets Big Tech in India (tni longreads)
“Through this rigged digital database, the Indian police force is being empowered to sustain its caste-based criminalisation of marginalised communities and continue to act arbitrarily with impunity.”
House owner detained for caste-based discrimination (Dignity Post)
Nepal -“In yet another incident of serious caste-based discrimination a house owner has been arrested at the country’s Capital city on Sunday for refusing to provide her rooms to a Dalit woman for rent.”
MP: Dalit labourer's pregnant wife 'raped' in front of children after he refused to cut trees (Timesnownews.com)
India - A shocking case has come to light from Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district where a pregnant woman, belonging to the Dalit community, has alleged that she was sexually assaulted in front of her children after her husband, who works as a labourer, refused to chop some trees at a farm owned by the accused.
India’s marginalised girls fighting child marriage (Al Jazeera)
“In October 2020, after convincing her parents to put off her marriage, Priyanka Berwa, 18, a Scheduled Caste girl from Ramthara village in Karauli, decided to keep going. Nine girls joined her and they started a campaign against child marriage called the Dalit Adivasi Pichhada Varg Kishori Shiksha Abhiyan (Movement for Education of Dalit Tribal Backward Groups’ Girls).”
The pandemic, a mirror for Indian society (The Indian Express)
“India’s Covid catastrophe also reveals something sinister that has largely evaded our attention – the age-old socio-economic inequalities, which continue to plague its society. It is these structural inequalities that create and perpetuate vulnerabilities”
Delhi: Half of Covid dead under municipal corporations are safai karamcharis (The Indian Express)
“Of the 94 deaths among corporation employees due to Covid, 49 are sanitation workers.”
North Stars ft. Ashif Shaikh (Naghma)
“Hailing from a backward caste within the Muslim community, he has lived the narrative he is working to change.”
Dalit leaders fume at non-Dalit bishop for Salem (Matters India)
India - “Although more than 60 percent of Catholics in Tamil Nadu are Dalits, they have only one bishop. There is no just representation of leaders in the Catholic Church,”
Dalit music artist Sumeet Samos crowdfunds his way to Oxford University (The Siasat Daily)
India - “he took to his social media account to start the fundraiser, citing several failed attempts at seeking scholarships and grants. The fundraiser, posted on crowdfunding platform Milaap, saw an overwhelming response as Sumeet received over 27 lakhs in a record three-hour time.”
Leeds woman who fled a forced marriage aged 16 calls for caste-based discrimination to become an offence (ITV news)
UK - “people across the UK are still being matched based on their caste system and it is largely going under the radar.”
‘Terrible atrocities continue’: Kapil Seshasayee, the Scottish musician calling out casteism (the Guardian)
Scotland - “Seshasayee describes himself as a protest musician, and speaks over Zoom in a measured but passionate tone about casteism and other forms of discrimination.”
Man Convicted for Caste Hate Speech in UK (The Asian Independent)
UK - "We understand the charge did not specifically refer to ‘caste’ because caste is not a protected characteristic in law.... Without such clarity, cases like this will... not be recorded.
Why Making Caste a Protected Category in the US is a Necessity (The Quint)
USA - “Whether one lives in Silicon Valley, New Jersey, or Texas, whether one is a software engineer, a university student, or a restaurant worker — caste bias rears its ugly head in each of their lives.”
1 in 2 Indians faced bias in Trump’s final year: US study (Hindustan Times)
USA - “One in two Indian Americans experienced some form of discrimination in the United States over the course of a 12-month period, says a new survey-based study. And it’s mostly over the colour of their skin, followed by gender, religion, country of origin and caste, in that order.”
Why Is Caste Inequality Still Legal in America? (New York Times)
USA - “these cases show how caste operates within America’s racially stratified work force to create largely hidden, yet pernicious patterns of discrimination and exploitation.”
Caste in Silicon Valley? Rights commission to consider later (Indica News)
USA - “Information presented and testimonies delivered during the public forum suggest that there may be serious issues with discrimination against the Dalit and caste-oppressed communities”
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