The European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday Dec 13,2012
conducted an hour-long debate over the persistence of human rights
violations against Dalits in India.
While
acknowledging the efforts at various levels to eradicate caste
discrimination, the Parliament however, expressed alarm at the
continually large number of reported and unreported atrocities and
widespread untouchability practices, such as manual scavenging
On its previous resolutions on the issue (February 2007
and April 2012), the Parliament noted that while India has made
enormous economic progress, caste discrimination continues to be
widespread and persistent.
It called upon the
European Union’s and the Member States’ representatives in India to
include the issue of caste discrimination in their dialogues with the
Indian authorities, and to prioritise programmes addressing caste
discrimination, in education, and programmes with particular focus on
women and girls.
The Parliament instructed its President to forward this resolution,
which was adopted unanimously by the EP, to India’s Prime Minister,
Minister for Law and Justice, Home Minister, Minister of Social Justice
and Empowerment, EU institutions, the Secretary-General of the
Commonwealth, the Secretary-General of the UN and the President of the
UN General Assembly.
It particularly noted the cases of a gang rape of a girl in Haryana
where her father committed suicide and the police only decided to take
belated action when faced with mass protests and the looting and
torching of 268 Dalit houses by a 1,000 strong mob of upper castes in
Dharmapuri, with no intervention from the police officers present.
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