Tearing down the wall of caste
Bobby Kunhu
http://idsn.org/international-advocacy/un/un-principles-guidelines/unhchr-opinion-piece/
Tearing down the wall of caste
By Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
A group of representatives from caste-affected communities in Asia
recently gave me a piece of brick from the wall of a torn-down
latrine. The brick symbolized the global struggle against the
degrading practice of making members of a “lower caste” clean public
toilets with their bare hands.
This practice, which persists in many places despite increasing
prohibition in law, is not the workers' choice. It is rather a task
that they inherit because of their social origins and descent. In
turn, these discriminated individuals are further “contaminated” by
their work and further trapped in a generational cycle of social
exclusion and marginalization.
Today caste-affected communities and civil society activists are
hoping to tear down the much bigger invisible wall of discrimination
by trying to promote new international standards of equality and
non-discrimination. I have tremendous respect for their determination
and courage. As a woman of color from a racial minority growing up in
apartheid South Africa, I know a thing or two about discrimination.
“Untouchability” is a social phenomenon affecting approximately 260
million persons worldwide. This type of discrimination is typically
associated with the notions of ritual purity and pollution which are
deeply rooted in different societies and cultures. The problem is
neither confined to one geographical area nor exclusively practiced
within one particular religion of belief system. It is a global
phenomenon.
Caste is the very negation of the human rights principles of equality
and non-discrimination. It condemns individuals from birth and their
communities to a life of exploitation, violence, social exclusion and
segregation. Caste-discrimination is not only a human rights
violation, but also exposes those affected to other abuses of their
civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.
“Lower caste” individuals are frequently confined to hereditary,
low-income employment and deprived of access to agricultural land and
credit. They often find themselves battling high levels of
indebtedness or even debt and labor bondage, which is practically a
contemporary form of slavery. The barriers they face in seeking
justice or redress are formidable. Child labor is rampant in
descent-based communities and children of “lower castes” suffer high
levels of illiteracy. For women, caste is a multiplier that compounds
their experience of poverty and discrimination.
Laws and policies have been put in place in many to combat this
scourge. Constitutions prohibit caste-based discrimination and “lower
caste” members have been elected to the highest offices of the land.
Special legislation has been enacted to provide for affirmative action
in education and employment, as well as protection from violence and
exploitation. Judiciaries have sought to enforce laws and provide
relief to victims. Dedicated institutions monitor the conditions and
advocate on behalf of “lower caste” groups.
At the international level, the Convention for the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination explicitly lists descent as a ground of
racial discrimination. The Durban Declaration and Program of Action,
adopted at the World Conference on Racism in 2001, recognized
descent-based discrimination. It also provided a comprehensive roadmap
to combat it which was reaffirmed by states in April this year.
Yet, there is a real need for targeted social policies and programs to
address caste-based discrimination. It is imperative to implement
education programs that can change deeply rooted systemic, cultural
and social prejudices, customs, beliefs and traditions based on
descent, power and affluence. Above all, caste-affected communities
must be given a voice and full participation in the development,
implementation and evaluation of strategies aimed at empowering them.
The international community should come together to support these
efforts as it did when it helped put an end to apartheid.
This action to stem an abhorrent form of marginalization and exclusion
which traps the victims in hopelessness and poverty is long overdue.
We owe it to those “lower-caste” families forced to leave their
village because they dared to vote in a parliamentary election against
the favored candidate of the upper caste. We owe it to the villagers
belonging to the lowest social class starving to death because they
were not able to benefit from the public services which they were
entitled to. We owe it to that “lower caste” woman assaulted, publicly
humiliated and forced to eat her own excreta by members of the upper
caste community accusing her of witchcraft. All caste-victims demand
and deserve remedies. The plight of hundreds of millions cannot be
justified as age-old traditions, nor can it be regarded merely as a
“family business.”
The Human Rights Council, the premier intergovernmental body for the
protection and promotion of human rights, should promote the 2009
Draft Principles and Guidelines for the Effective Elimination of
Discrimination based on Work and Descent. This study complements
existing international standards of non-discrimination. All states
must rally around and endorse these norms. The time has come to
eradicate the shameful concept of caste. Other seemingly
insurmountable walls, such as slavery and apartheid, have been
dismantled in the past. We can and must tear down the barriers of
caste too.
This opinion piece was released on 8 October 2009
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Bobby Kunhu http://community.eldis.org/myshkin/Blog/