(These are excerpts from Hansard’s recent debate on slavery, which featured prominently in speeches by Labour MP and DSN Trustee Jeremy Corbyn as well as Liberal Democrat International Development spokesman. It is good to see that Dalits featured prominently in the debate on slavery.)
Jeremy Corbyn: I also want to talk briefly about institutional or caste discrimination that leads directly to slavery. I must declare an interest in that I am a trustee of the Dalit Solidarity Network. We have had a number of public meetings. The discrimination against Dalit people, commonly known as untouchables, in India and other places is serious. It is not merely discrimination; it is a form of slavery and control, which leads to the loss of many lives and livelihoods.
I was in India earlier this year, and I welcomed the Dalit Solidarity March, which arrived at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, having marched thousands of miles through India to draw attention to the plight of these people. If we were to look at the legal situation in India, and to read the Indian Constitution and legal statutes, we would all say, "Fine, they have total protection." Bonded labour is illegal, slavery is illegal, and discrimination on grounds of caste is illegal. But they go on.
At a local level, if one asks any Dalit person what they do when they are threatened, when their children are forced to make carpets and bricks, when they are forced to work in the owner's house and everything that goes with that, they will say, "What can we do?" There is not a court that will be interested in what they have to say; nobody will represent them, yet the Constitution offers them that protection. When one looks at the slave trade that exists in other parts of the world, one sees the reality.
When the Department for International Development and the European Union are disbursing aid packages, aid programmes and development programmes, they ensure that those programmes not only reach all people, but that they are disbursed in a way that does not prop up a social, legal or economic system that systematically exploits people or owns such forms of exploitation and slavery.
Tom Brake: The hon. Member for Islington, North mentioned the issue of caste. A caste system can be defined as a hierarchy based on historically embedded cultural, social and economic differences between people. Caste systems are not simply about religion, though religion does play a part in supporting them. As we have heard, such systems are prevalent in South Asia, particularly in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and in some African countries, such as Nigeria and Somalia.
I shall focus principally on the Dalit people and am pleased that we have here at the debate someone who clearly knows a lot more about that subject than I do. The Dalits are at the bottom of the caste system and have the least resources and power in society. It is estimated that 260 million people across the world are poor because of their place in the caste system.
Dalits are the untouchables? A pool of cheap labour that is used by the rest of society. Typically, the jobs that they are allowed to do include road sweeping and toilet cleaning. Cultural norms ensure that Dalits are separated from others and isolated from other castes. They have to remove their shoes when walking through other parts of the village, and are exploited for being at the bottom of the caste system. In many respects, they are in an identical position to that of bonded labourers: They are bound to the same job for generations because of their inherited, rigid position in society. Their jobs are paid, albeit at a low rate, and one could argue that they are secure, but Dalits are the most likely social group to be sold into bonded labour when the family needs extra money for weddings, funerals or hospital bills. Money is borrowed from a family member's employer, or from a moneylender, in exchange for labour. Although Dalits are likely to become bonded labourers, that do not automatically mean that all bonded labourers are Dalits, especially where caste systems do not prevail.
As we have heard, Dalits are supposed to be protected under Indian and international law. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act 1989 in India is an instrument under which those holding Dalits in bonded labour can be prosecuted. A number of UN Conventions also recognise that allocating labour by caste or descent is a form of discrimination.
Along with the implementation of the Indian law in 1989 and similar laws across South Asia, other measures have been taken to advance the position of Dalits in society, such as the provision of loans. In the Punjab, loans are provided through two schemes: the integrated rural development programme and the Punjab Scheduled Caste Finance Corporation. However, both schemes have been beset by problems. For example, having received a loan, people were no longer considered to be living below the poverty line, whether or not they had benefited from the loan.
Corruption is endemic in the system, with middlemen and the authorities taking a cut of the loan for themselves or for higher caste families. In addition, the Indian Government guidelines specify that the loans should be given to young, educated Dalits, but 80 per cent. of loans have gone to illiterate people, most of whom were more than 50 years old and had little training on how to make best use of the money. Not surprisingly, the schemes have failed and people are now in a worse position than before, because they cannot repay the additional debts that they have incurred.
The Department for International Development has a role and it is entirely appropriate that it should consider its policies in relation to Dalits. I have tabled a series of parliamentary questions today to establish whether, in the Department's policies, it ensures that both it and the organisations it supports are aware of caste discrimination and that they respond to the challenge.
Even in the UK there is discrimination against Dalits. I met
some Dalits recently, one of whom is a senior person working at a hospital in
Ealing. He said not he but a woman Dalit colleague of his had encountered
enormous problems in establishing her authority as a manager, because the people
of a higher caste with whom she worked did not
recognise that she could possibly manage them. He said there was even graffiti
in the hospital, simply the word "caste", to remind her that she had no
authority in
the caste system.
The problem is an issue here, so it is entirely appropriate that the Department should consider how to respond to it. Perhaps we could ensure that, for instance, UK companies that export call centre jobs to India, which can be positive for international development, use the quota system that the Indian Government say should apply to Dalits. I hope that the Minister would respond to that. If not now, then in writing and confirm that the Department of Trade and Industry talks to British businesses that export jobs to India and other south Asian countries about responding on the caste issue and ensuring that Dalits are properly represented.
To conclude, there is still much work to be done on all forms of slavery, and especially on bonded labour, the exploitation of the Dalits by the caste system, child labour - and child soldiers in particular - and the enslavement of migrants in the UK. As we know, this year is the UN's international year to commemorate the struggle against slavery and its abolition. Next year, the UK will hold the presidency of both the EU and the G8. We cannot miss the golden opportunity to use those presidencies to tackle the poverty and misery caused by contemporary forms of slavery, and to try to make amends for the UK's previous role in the slave trade.
Tom Brake: Is the Minister aware that India has turned down an offer from the Danes to investigate the issue of Dalits? She is right to be concerned that the focus may go off such matters.
Fiona Mactaggart: The evidence is that the focus in the UK's programme has not gone off those matters. That is important. We continue to work on them with the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations, non-governmental organisations and other Governments. I gave some examples of that work.