WUNRN
RIGHTS-INDIA:
Gov't Failing Low Caste Women, U.N. Says
Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS,
Jan 19 (IPS) - India, the world's most populous democracy, has come under fire
from a United Nations body for its failure to protect low caste women and those
belonging to the country's religious minorities from
discrimination.
At a meeting held here this week, a General Assembly
committee responsible for monitoring discriminatory practices against women
worldwide charged that the South Asian nation was falling short of its
obligations under a prominent equal rights treaty.
India has ratified
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW), but continues to claim reservations on articles dealing with the issues
of sex role stereotyping and those concerning marriage and family life.
"The convention is for every woman in the country, not just the upper
class or upper caste," said committee member Glenda Simms, noting that low-caste
women in the Hindu system and other minority groups were suffering from "deeply
rooted structural discrimination."
The committee urged India to join the
ranks of other democracies by ratifying the convention's optional protocol,
which lifts barriers to justice for the victims of sexual violence, and to
intervene on behalf of its most marginalised female population.
"It is
difficult to understand how the Indian government can claim democratic rights
for all, yet see women killed because they cannot pay dowry and young girls
given away in marriage," noted another member of the committee.
The
23-member committee also took the Indian government to task for its response to
the sectarian riots in the state of Gujarat, where extensive violence against
Muslim men and women by Hindu mobs took place in 2002.
The attacks were
ostensibly in retaliation for the burning to death on Feb. 27, 2002 of 58 Hindu
pilgrims on a train, mostly women and children, by a Muslim mob.
Decrying a continued lack of clarity surrounding the riots, the
committee noted that despite its "repeated requests" for exact information about
the number of victims, the Indian government had failed to respond until this
week.
Experts said figures supplied by non-governmental organisations
and other sources indicated "a much high number of women killed, abused, or
assaulted than what the government had provided."
Official estimates
have asserted that 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus died in the violence, with 223
missing and 2,548 injured.
But independent groups say about 2,000 people
were killed in Gujarat, and some 380 women were raped and sexually abused. The
committee noted that in its response, the government failed to specifically
address the issue of "brutalisation of women," as its data were not
disaggregated by sex.
Hanna Beate Schopp-Shilling, a committee member
from Germany, said she was disappointed with the Indian government's response to
questions on gender-related details in a recent report on the Muslim community
in India.
"As a state party to the women's convention, India has an
opportunity to appear before the committee every four years," she noted,
"However, it has been very slow in reporting."
Noting that 70 percent of
women live in rural areas, several members expressed their concerns at the
displacement of tribal communities as a result of industrialisation and other
development projects, such as construction of dams.
In her remarks on
various forms of discrimination against women in India, Simms said she feared
that children sold into prostitution, including many Dalit (low caste) children,
would be victims and conduits of HIV/AIDS.
"One cannot speak about
children without speaking about their mothers," she added, referring to millions
of displaced minority and Dalit women, who are often forced to place their
children in wealthier households as domestic labour, where they are sometimes
sexually exploited.
In response to the committee's criticism and
concerns, Deepa Jain Singh, secretary of India's Ministry of Women, defended her
government's position by saying that women in her country were "guaranteed the
right to equality" and "equal protection before the law."
Referring to
the Gujarat riots, she described the incidents as "an aberration that should
never happen again," and said that India had "learned lessons from those
unfortunate events."
Singh said India's Supreme Court had acted at the
urging of the National Human Rights Commission, adding that a series of orders
had been passed between 2003 and 2004 and that over 2,000 closed cases were
reviewed.
In an attempt justify the Indian government's reservations
about ratifying the Convention's optional protocol, Singh pointed out that, "It
is indeed optional." Though she did not indicate a timeframe, she added that the
government would "like to see through it" and that "it is only a matter of
time."
While conceding that certain groups of women do suffer from
"multiple forms of discrimination based on caste, religion and disability," the
Indian delegation said the government was determined to pursue changes in
existing laws to address discrimination against women.
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