Welcome to The Inclusivity Project :: Mission to ensure enrichment of the Knowledge and Information
Welcome to The Inclusivity Project :: Mission to ensure enrichment of the Knowledge and Information
Women from Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD) sit at the violent
intersection of gender-based discrimination and discrimination based on work and descent.
Like others from their caste or social group, CDWD women experience forced and inhumane labor as
well as segregation that denies them access to fundamental resources such as education, clean
water and sanitation, and access to justice. In addition, they also experience gender and sexual
violence from both those outside and within their social groups.
Thus, if Sustainable
Development Goal 5 is to be achieved, it must be acknowledged that discrimination based on
work and descent is one of the foundations of the patriarchy, and that gender equality cannot be
achieved until Caste, Forced Labor, Modern Slavery, and the Cultural Practices they have produced
are eradicated.
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Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD)
The pernicious nature of intersectional discrimination is such that the two forms of oppressive
structures at play – in this case, patriarchy and discrimination based on work and descent –
strengthen one another to form a uniquely brutal form of discrimination.
Intersectional
discrimination is not additive; it is not two forms of discrimination operating separately. Rather,
it is multiplicative. We see this clearly when considering the discrimination faced by women and
girls from CDWD, who experience both a unique form of work and descent-based discrimination
and a unique form of gender-based discrimination.
Discrimination based on work and descent does not impact men and women equally; women and
girls experience it at far greater rates than men from their caste or social group and are often
forced to perform forms of labor that are unique to their gender. They work as farmers in the
fields and in the sewers as manual scavengers, but they also perform domestic work, childcare,
and, very often, sexual labor. This can be seen statistically, as it is estimated that around 71
percent of victims of contemporary slavery are female, which is due partly to the fact that15
million people across the world have been sold into forced marriages, often at ages as young as
12 and 13. 1 Additionally, in South Asia, Dalit women make up 75 percent of manual scavengers,
and female farm laborers produce 60-80 percent of South Asia’s food.
This statistical unbalance can be ascribed to the fact that CDWD women have fewer avenues by
which to improve upon their own condition. While access to education is denied to both CDWD
men and women, it is still far easier for a man to receive an education than a woman, partly due
to the pressure women and girls face from their own families and communities to marry early
and to the domestic work they are expected to do. In India, for example, women from Scheduled
Castes have a literacy rate of 56 percent while men have a literacy rate of about 72 percent. 3
Similarly, CDWD men are more likely to be able to pursue additional work or business
opportunities outside of their primary occupation due to the time constraints placed on women by
their domestic duties. 4 For enslaved women, this phenomenon is even more pronounced.
Tied to the children they are often forced to have, it is far more difficult for women to escape from
slavery than men.