Women's Corner

(Geneva, August 11, 2005): Caste discrimination is a root cause and an insidious consequence of the civil war in Nepal, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice charged in a new report released today.
The conflict will remain unresolved without a sustained commitment to ending caste-based abuses.

The 65-page report, titled “The Missing Piece of the Puzzle: Caste Discrimination and the Conflict in Nepal,” exposes the as yet undocumented impact of the civil war on Nepal’s most vulnerable citizens: Dalits or so-called untouchables.

The report was released in Geneva during the two-week meeting of the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. The Maoists have capitalized on caste and gender discrimination in Nepal by heavily recruiting Dalits and women for their “people’s militia.” Maoist indoctrination often includes a special emphasis on the oppression of the “lower castes,” and the Maoists’ alleged role in liberating them.

The dismantling of the educational system also has fed large numbers of children into the militia. Once recruited, Dalits are relegated to the lower ranks of the movement and are, in effect, taking the bullets for the Maoist insurgency. Coupled with reports that the practice of “untouchability” and sexual abuse against Dalit women persists even within the ranks of the Maoist movement, evidence shows that Dalits have begun to feel extremely alienated and underserved by the movement that purports to liberate them.

“The ‘People’s War’ has turned on the very people it purported to empower; Dalits have proven to be the favored victim of both State forces and Maoists,” said Smita Narula, Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.