Discrimination Based on Work and Descent
Joint oral statement by Anti-Slavery International, Asian Legal Resource Centre, FORUM-ASIA, Habitat International Coalition, Human Rights Watch, International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, Lutheran World Federation, Minority Rights Group International, Pax Romana, RADDHO, and Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation, NGOs in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council;
in conjunction with International Federation for Human Rights and Franciscans International.
Mr. Chairperson,
We refer to the Sub-Commission’s proposal for the appointment of two of its members as special rapporteurs to undertake a study on discrimination based on work and descent.
Discrimination based on work and descent has historically been a feature of societies in different regions of the world and today still affects a significant proportion of the world’s population, an estimated 260 million people, including the Dalits in South Asia, the Burakumin of Japan, and caste-affected communities from other Asian and African countries. Although affected communities from Asia and Africa are highly diverse in geographical and historical origin they share to a greater or lesser extent several key characteristics that are inherently productive of discrimination and human rights violation.
Dalit and other affected communities suffer discrimination, injustice and violence, sometimes of an obvious extreme nature, but more often of a subtle systemic nature. They face persisting untouchability practices, experience lack of access to land, water, housing and education, issues of forced and bonded labour, and most of them continue to live in extreme poverty, particularly in rural areas.
While the governments of some caste-affected countries have recognized this immense human rights problem and have instituted relevant laws and policies, inadequate implementation and lack of political will remain large barriers in the elimination of this form of discrimination.
Representatives of affected communities and international human rights organizations have been advocating with UN human rights bodies and other international forums to take up this enormous human rights problem and contribute to its elimination. Dalits and other affected communities urge the UN human rights system to bring them under its purview for the purpose of combating this form of discrimination, which has largely remained outside of the global human rights monitoring system.
Significant developments have, however, taken place in the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and in the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
CERD took a strong position on this issue by adopting the General Recommendation No. XXIX in 2002 on descent-based discrimination. This General Recommendation reaffirmed that
"discrimination based on ‘descent’ includes discrimination against members of communities based on forms of social stratification such as caste and analogous system of inherited status which nullify or impair their equal enjoyment of human rights."
The Sub-Commission, in August 2000, issued a significant resolution declaring that discrimination based on work and descent is prohibited by international human rights law, and called on governments to take measures to eliminate this type of discrimination. In a series of working papers presented to the Sub-Commission, the global dimensions of this form of discrimination, and its main features, have been examined in considerable detail.
On 12 August 2004, the Sub-Commission adopted by consensus a further resolution on this topic, in which it recommended to the Commission on Human Rights that two of the Sub-Commission’s members, Mr. Yozo Yokota and Ms Chin-Sung Chung, be appointed as special rapporteurs with the task of preparing a comprehensive study on discrimination based on work and descent. A draft resolution to this effect is now before the Commission.
Mr. Chairperson,
We have reached an important juncture in the history of the international human rights movement, when the Commission is asked to provide a mandate for the detailed examination of the human rights implications of a discriminatory form of social organization that affects over a quarter of a billion people around the globe. It is a step that is long overdue. Therefore we the co-sponsors of this statement, along with many other national and international organizations including the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights in India and the International Dalit Solidarity Network, urge the Commission on Human Rights to adopt this resolution and thereby to affirm the appointment of Mr. Yozo Yokota and Ms Chin-Sung Chung as Sub-Commission special rapporteurs to undertake a study of work and descent based discrimination in accordance with the mandate proposed.
Thank You