I spent the day yesterday with my friends from Dhruba, a Bangladeshi NGO based in Khulna which serves the needs of the Dalit community in southwestern Bangladesh. This area is home to at least 50 Dalit villages, communities of 200-400 people each, extremely poor farmers and laborers. Mostly Hindu. We must have spent 8 hours on the motorcycle yesterday, going from village to village meeting with entire Dalit communities who had gathered for the occasion in the flimsy bamboo structures that serve as local schools. It was an incredible day, filled with stories of both abuse and discrimination and the ever-present, hopeful smiles of young kids, the future of their communities. They have an uphill battle, because in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, the Dalits are at the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder, kept there by a combination of discrimination, poverty and injustice.
It’s often hard for people in well-developed countries to relate to the mindset created by the past caste system, but
“Caste systems and discrimination against so-called ‘untouchables’ are traditionally regarded as part of Hindu culture and certainly originate in Hindu scriptures. But in Bangladesh, these traditions and practices have also been adopted by the Muslim majority. In addition, an unknown number of Christian Dalits live in Bangladesh. Members of these low castes have been known by terms such as ‘untouchables’ and ‘scheduled castes.’ However, they increasingly refer to themselves as Dalits – ‘broken people’ – to emphasize the fact that they have been deliberately exploited, oppressed and destroyed through generations. Since ancient times they have held jobs such as fishermen, sweepers, barbers, washers, dyers, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, oil-pressers, boatmen, weavers, sawyers, butchers, gardeners, tailors and drum beaters. These are all important positions for the functioning of any society, but they are widely regarded as menial. Hindu and Muslim Dalits share a number of problems and challenges but also differ in some respects. The Hindus suffer double discrimination as members of a religious minority in the Muslim nation as well as because of low status as Dalits within their own communities.” From “Dalits of Bangladesh: Destined to a Life of Humiliation” by the International Dalit Solidarity Network.
The problems they say they face include: discrimination in housing, education and employment decisions; discrimination in the dispersion of government funding; chronic unreported and unprosecuted sexual abuse suffered by Dalit girls; inability to bury their dead in public cemeteries reserved for ‘respectable’ people; illegal land seizures; lack of electricity and roads and other public utilities enjoyed, however meagerly, by their neighbors; forced labor; human trafficking into brothels and other work, including as child camel jockeys; lack of political representation and opportunity.
It’s really, really sad. All day I was thinking of how to write a profound blog entry on the Dalits of Bangladesh, but realized that I have so much to learn that I don’t even know where to start. I don’t even know if the correct spelling is Dalit or dalit, capitalized or not, or even if this is an offensive name in some ways. I really don’t know. But this is my start. There are apparently 4-5 million Dalits in Bangladesh, the poorest of the poor, many of whom are the young girls who are forced into prostitution or trafficked or serially abused in their own communities. These are the people I set out to help when I decided to become a lawyer for the poor 10 years ago. I’m going to do something to help.
In the summer of 2003, during a brief visit to Cambodia before heading back to the US for my second year of law school, I was struck by the need for scholarships for girls-at-risk. I was being served at a restaurant by two young girls, aged 17 or so, and they told me that they wanted to go to university in Phnom Penh but couldn’t because of the cost. After a quick calculation, I realized that for about $500 a year a girl in Cambodia could go to the best university in the country. Pocket change for many Americans, a transformed life for a Cambodian girl. The same would be true here, for even less money, in Bangladesh.
I need to figure out the numbers more precisely, but I think that for about $200 a year a young girl could attend school grades 6-12 and have the books and uniforms and support necessary, including some overage to pay someone to administer the program and keep track of it. I think that the need in the Bangladeshi Dalit community is to fund girls aged 10-12 to stay in school and then stay there until they are 18 or done with the 12th grade. Most Dalit girls drop out of school after the 5th grade because that is when they’d have to attend a more expensive or remote school, so most drop out. Soon after, by the age of 14 or so, most are married. Their daughters will have the same limited options, so the cycle will continue as it has for generations. We can stop this, or at least put a dent in the problem, by funding girls to stay in school.
Whenever I go to poor communities, I always ask the kids what their dream for the future is. When we asked the girls that question yesterday, some of the Bangladeshi Dalit girls didn’t even know, perhaps had never even been asked this question before. They seemed to be surprised at the question, and some men told us that the girls were too ashamed of their dreams and their poverty to even speak in front of others. But when gently pressed on the question, they answered like any other girl anywhere in the world – they wanted to be teachers and nurses and doctors and lawyers, even a few police officers.
There is a danger in communities of so few opportunities, so little social mobility, of creating false hopes. I think about that every time I talk to girls in poverty. But I think that we have to create a mindset where girls are looked at not as just a burden or as a future child bride but as future teachers and doctors and community leaders. Yesterday I enjoyed talking with the Dalit men and encouraging them to support their daughters in school, to not marry them off early, and to imagine that their daughters could one day be their family’s greatest asset if they had an education and an opportunity. The world looks at them as untouchables; we can look to them as so much more.
An aside: I fully recognize the needs of boys in poverty, too. The boys in the brothels, the Dalit boys, boys in poverty all over the world, need help too. One of the most heartbreaking things I’ve seen is the street boys in India gathered at the train stations living in dirt and grime, many of them sexually abused and subjected to horrific exploitation. And there is a problem if only girls are helped. I recognize this. But in a world where there is such deep need, and I can’t do everything, I want to help the poorest and most vulnerable, and I want to at least help some. That means the girls who would otherwise, as among the Bangladeshi Dalits, be forced out of school and into early marriages and into lives of permanent poverty. The issue of young girls forced into prostitution is also one of the worst things I can imagine, so I’ve always wanted to help girls-at-risk in particular. I think that one of the best ways to fight global poverty, to speak up for the poor, is to educate girls, and I’m pretty sure that the stats from poor communities around the world support this conclusion. I wish I could do it all…
Aside #2: The lawyer in me was inspired by my time with the Dalits yesterday, too. More on that later. But for now, know that the illegal land seizures and abuse and discrimination suffered by the Dalits are prime areas to do legal work for the poor. There are many cases just waiting for good advocates to tackle them. Speak Up was founded to tackle such cases, and yesterday I saw a lot that could be done. As I wrote above, I wish I could do it all…
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