Education and Dalit Women

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EDUCATION AND DALIT WOMEN * INTRODUCTION Dalit Women from South Asia are determined to “transform their pain into power”. That was the main message of the 2 day International Conference held in the Hague on the 20th and 21st November2006.It was the first International Conference to discuss the issues of discrimination and violence against more than 100million Dalit women. In South Asia, Dalit- known as “Untouchables” and “Outcastes” – have endused caste discrimination for centuries. The situation OF Dalit women, one of the largest socially segregated groups in the world is shocking. They face ‘triple discrimination’ as Dalits, as women as poor. About 75% of Dalits live below poverty line. Economic backwardness of Dalit is mostly due to injustice done to them by the high castes and also due to exploitation. From the time of immemorial worked like slave, sold as commodities resulting in their social discrimination, economic deprivation and educational backwardness. Since the mid 1990’s, Dalit women’s groups and platforms have expressed three concerns : impact of state policies, patriarchal bias of Dalit movements, and upper-caste/ middle-class leadership of the women’s movement. Since then concerted efforts have been made to highlight these through common action and other forms of engagement. Unity among diversity is a constitutional motto, but the integration is not an easy task to maintain it. Until and unless the Dalit communities are brought into the governance process and cannot give the due respect to the Dalit women for participation, national integrity will remain confined to the constitution only. Education here plays an important role which provides awareness among the Dalit women to raise the voice against atrocities and take the advantages of the government welfare schemes and improve their condition in socio-economic scenario. *
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