25. november, den internationale dag for afskaffelse af vold mod kvinder, appellerer aktivister fra Dalit kvindegruppen til, at verden retter opmærksomheden mod den grusomme vold, som kvinder udsættes for på grund af deres kaste og køn.
While the world is busy praising India’s booming economy and status as ‘the world’s biggest democracy’, Dalit women are subjected to rape, torture, beatings, naked parading and humiliation including being made to eat human faeces in front of members of the dominant castes.
The reason is that they are the lowest of the low in South Asia’s caste hierarchy, also considered a ‘hidden apartheid’, and if they dare to challenge that position and stand up for their rights, they risk violent consequences.
“There are more than 120 million women in South Asia who have been discriminated against and whose rights are violated based on caste and gender,” explains Manjula Pradeep, Executive Director of Navsarjan, an Indian organization that works to empower Dalit women in their struggle against oppression.
Ms. Pradeep stresses that Dalit women have been subjected to forced prostitution, gang rape and other violence for more than 3000 years due to their gender and caste, and it must end now.
Caste “condemns individuals from birth and their communities to a life of exploitation, violence, social exclusion and segregation,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, wrote in an opinion piece last year. Comparing caste to apartheid and slavery she urged that, “we can and must tear down the barriers of caste too”.
Dalit women are among the women in the world that are the most vulnerable to violence and yet also among those that the world hears the least about. On the UN’s Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Dalit women are therefore calling for the world to support them in their struggle and help raise public awareness of their situation.
Despite their destitution, Dalit women are mobilising to fight their corner and risking the consequences to bring awareness to their situation and eradicate the suppressive caste system that causes the violence against them, explains Durga Sob, President of the Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO) in Nepal. Ms. Sob urges the UN to pay special attention to the plight of Dalit women subjected to multiple discrimination, saying that, “Dalit women are especially vulnerable to violence and abuse because they are untouchable, because they are women, because they are poor.”
At a press conference to commemorate the Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women Michele Bachelet, Head of UN Women, the UN agency on women’s issues, explains, “Ending violence against women is not just an end in itself but is a key factor in achieving wider gender equality and accelerating the progress on the MDGs.”
Dalit women are hoping that UN Women, the UN and the international community will help them to stop the violence against them and raise awareness of their struggle to become more than ‘the untouchable women the world forgot’.
