Saturday, October 10, 2020

Dalit women: Rapes reveal double struggle of low-caste females in India

The victim of India's latest alleged gang rape faced the double discrimination of being born female and low caste, says her family, fearing she will get no justice in death either.

They say it would all have been different if the 19-year-old victim of a brutal attack came from an upper-caste family or if the suspects were all lower-caste Indians, known as Dalit.

India Dalit protest1

"The police are twisting facts," her brother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

"Things could have been different had we belonged to an upper caste." 

His sister - who cannot be named - died from her injuries last week after she was allegedly attacked by upper-caste men on 14th September in a field near her home in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, sparking widespread outrage and protests.

Days later, another lower-caste Dalit woman died in the same state, also after being gang raped.

read more here @ Sight Magazine




The cases highlight discrimination and abuse against India's 200 million Dalits, who are on the lowest rung of an ancient caste hierarchy and suffer social and economic exclusion despite laws to protect them.

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