Human Rights Violation of Dalit Women in Bangladesh

Abstract

By reviewing secondary literature, this paper has analyzed the human rights situation and challenges of Dalit communities in Bangladesh, with a specific focus on the status of their women. The review unravels that Dalits belong to the most underprivileged minor communities, generally considered as lesser human beings, impure, polluted, and are secluded as well as excluded from the social and economic domains of mainstream society. Due to the social norms associated with caste system, their economic opportunities are strictly limited to menial, low paid, and service oriented jobs. Social exclusion denies their access to most basic rights, opportunities, and potential to develop as full human beings. As a result, they fail to break the inter-generational cycle of poverty, exclusion, and other forms of socio-economic marginalization. Dalit women’s situation is far worse and daunting due to their multifaceted marginal identities of being gender, religious, and occupational minorities. Finally, this paper advocates the necessity for hearing the voices and perspectives of Dalit communities, and facilitate social dialogues between them and stakeholders from governmental and non-governmental organizations, to preserve and re-conceptualize Dalit’s human rights in their own terms.