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UN wakes up to caste
discrimination
By Gustavo
Capdevila
GENEVA - The discrimination
faced by over 260 million dalits in South Asia and
other "lower caste" communities elsewhere in the
world has finally been acknowledged by the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights.
A
resolution adopted by consensus at the
commission's 61st session, currently in its last
week in Geneva, appointed Yozo Yokota of Japan and
Chin-Sung Chung of South Korea as special
rapporteurs with the task of preparing a
comprehensive study on discrimination based on
occupation and descent, the criteria on which
caste status is based.
This is the first
time that a UN forum has explicitly addressed this
problem that affects communities in close to 20
countries in South Asia, East Asia and Africa.
Up until now, according to Dr Umakant of
the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights in
India, there has been a conspiracy of silence
regarding this issue among international
organizations.
The participants in this
"conspiracy" include UN groups like the Committee
on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women, and the Committee on the Rights of
the Child, he told IPS.
For many years,
the issue of caste-based discrimination has been
denied consideration at international meetings.
During the UN World Conference Against Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related
Intolerance, held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa,
an initiative to include a paragraph recognizing
discrimination on the basis of caste was
unsuccessful.
The inclusion of this
reference to caste discrimination was blocked by
the government of India, where the dalit community
accounts for 170 million of the country's 1.1
billion inhabitants.
The participants in
the Durban conference accepted the Indian
government's position that "caste and race are two
different identities", noted Vincent Manoharan,
general secretary of the National Campaign on
Dalit Human Rights.
The reason that New
Delhi has now allowed the Commission on Human
Rights to adopt a resolution addressing the issue,
he told IPS, is because the text refers to
discrimination based on "work and descent", as
opposed to "caste".
India's acceptance of
this wording allowed the sub-commission on the
Promotion and Protection of Human Rights to
prepare the draft resolution that was finally
adopted Tuesday by the Commission on Human Rights.
The sub-commission is the main subsidiary
body to the UN Commission on Human Rights. It is
composed of 26 experts who are elected by the
member states of the commission, with due regard
to equitable geographical distribution.
The commission itself is made up of 53
members at a time, with rotating participation by
all of the UN member states.
Manoharan
noted that dalits - formerly referred to as
"untouchables" - are totally segregated from the
rest of Indian society, in terms of housing,
education and employment opportunities. "Dalits
cannot live alongside non-dalits in our country,"
he said. "Even in schools, the discrimination is
rampant."
Dalits are also denied access to
public resources, such as drinking water, he
added. "We are forced to undertake all the filthy
jobs. Even today, human excreta is being carried
by our people all over in India. No other
community will take this job."
Although
India has developed affirmative action policies
and adopted constitutional safeguards and
legislation addressing this issue, "when it comes
to implementation, it is very, very minimal",
Manoharan maintained.
Moreover,
discrimination based on work and descent is not
limited to India, stressed Rikke Nohrlind,
coordinator of the International Dalit Solidarity
Network. Other countries where similar
discrimination is practiced include Algeria,
Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Japan,
Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Nepal, Niger,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Sri
Lanka and Yemen.
"Given the enormous
number of people facing such an egregious and
systematic denial of their basic rights, it is
surprising that the United Nations has taken so
long to recognize the problem," said Nohrlind.
In Nepal, a country besieged by armed
conflict between the forces of the monarchist
regime and Maoist guerrillas, the most vulnerable
sector of the population is the dalit community,
he noted.
The resolution adopted by the
Commission on Human Rights calls for a
comprehensive study of the issue and a search for
solutions to eradicate this form of
discrimination. The special rapporteurs appointed
for this task are to present a final report to the
sub-commission in three years.
(Inter
Press Service) |
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