Justpeace Blog

Gustavo Capdevila, Asia Times Online
April 22, 2005

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)