Challenges faced by Dalit Women

  • Failure of policies:
    • The policies are inadequate to minimize the handicaps and disabilities of the past and in reducing the gaps between them and the rest of the Indian society.
    • Dalit women continue to suffer from a high degree of poverty, gender discrimination, caste discrimination and socioeconomic deprivation.
  • Violence:
    • Girls face violence at a younger age and at a higher rate than women of other castes. According to the National Family Health Survey by the age of 15, 33.2% scheduled caste women experience physical violence.
    • The figure is 19.7% for “other” category women.
    • The violence continues, largely due to a sense of impunity among dominant castes.
  • Political power does not help:
    • Even when Dalit women acquire political power, as when they are elected as sarpanches, there is often no protection against the social power that sanctions violence and discrimination against them.
    • In a village with a Dalit woman sarpanch, a Dalit woman was burned, but no action was taken.
  • Attitude of dominant castes:
    • There is a mind-set among the dominant castes that make them feel that they can do anything they want with dalit girls and that they will get away with it.
    • The discrimination faced by Dalit women at the cost of the Brahmanical obsession with “purity and pollution” has had a detrimental effect on all the dimensions of development.
    • Even today Dalit women along with their families are commonly clustered in segregated hamlets at the edge of a village or mohallas in one corner of the village, devoid of civic amenities, drinking water, health care, education, approach roads etc.
    • In urban areas their homesteads are largely found in slum bases normally located in very unhygienic surrounding.
    • The exploitation of them under the name of religious such as “Nude Worship,” practice of devdasi system and such other similar types of practices make them more submissive to violence, and discrimination.
    • The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women has noted that Dalit women face targeted violence, even rape and murder, by the state actors and powerful members of the dominant castes used to inflict political lessons and crush dissent within the community.
  • Cases withdrawn and lack of justice:
    • Very often cases are withdrawn and witnesses turn hostile because of pressure outside the system without adequate protection given to them.
    • Sanctioned impunity on behalf of offenders is a major issue in India, and the police often deny or purposefully neglect and delay Dalit women’s right to legal aid and justice. There is a consistent pattern of delay in report filing and irregularities regarding criminal procedures, which leads to widespread impunity and creates serious barriers to justice for Dalit women.
  • Workplace violence:
    • The risky workplaces compounded with a lack of labour rights protection measures render migrants dalit women more vulnerable to occupational injury.
    • Further, the emerging problem of sub-contracting short-termed labour makes it more difficult for them to claim compensation when they are injured at work places.
    • Dalit women are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by employers, migration agents, corrupt bureaucrats and criminal gangs.
    • The enslavement trafficking also contributes to migration of large proportion of dalit women.