AICC representatives recently attended the UN Durban Review Conference and expressed disappointment at the silence on work and descent-based discrimination which affacts about 2:50 million people in India Dalits, are 166 million and Scheduled Tribes are 84 million people. The conference, held April 20-24 in Geneva, was designed to assess the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programmer of Action made during the 2001 World Conference Against Racism. The Durban Review Conference outcome document was released on April 21, the second day of the conference. Many NGOs were upset that their input wasn’t received and the document was issued
before the end of the conference. Dr. Sam Paul of the AICC said “We are deeply disappointed that the Durban Review Conference outcome document doesn’t mention work and descent-based discrimination Racial discrimination based on descent was included in the Durban Declaration and Programmer of Action from the 2001 UN conference. Sadly, the elimination of this terminology excludes India’s Dalits from the attention and resources of international bodies. We hope this language is reinstated immediately so that millions of Dalits will benefit from assistance through the IMF, World Bank USAID, and other relevant organizations
