Dignity Initiative organized an international conference of Dalit lawyers in Kathmandu from 10-13 June 2024. The conference was organized by Dignity Initiative and American Bar Association (ABA). Altogether 23 lawyers attended the program from Nepal, India and Bangladesh.
While the human rights defender community in South Asia at large has taken up issues on behalf of the Dalits in legal fora, there have been roadblocks for Dalit defenders advocating for their own communities and becoming independent factors within the HRD community rather than beneficiaries of the HRD community. The 2024 Dalit Defenders conference would address this gap, aiming to empower Dalit defenders from the community and laying the foundation for the community and its members of the justice sector to represent itself in domestic and international legal fora.
The four-day conference started with two days of trainings on various topics and two days of strategic cross-regional dialogue on how to proliferate access to justice, protect human rights defenders from the community, and increase the representation of the community in the legal sector itself.
Among the issues discussed were fair trial monitoring, international human rights law against discrimination; responding to persecution or prosecution against Dalit Defenders, engaging with international press and international human rights fora including the EU and discussing the ABA’s toolkit on anti-bias and discrimination training, and designing and implementing anti-bias (implicit and explicit) trainings for justice sector actors including judges, police, prosecutors, and the public at large with the help of a U.S. anti-racism expert.
The second two days had a discussion around strategies to proliferate anti-discrimination and anti-hate-crime/atrocity laws in the region with lessons learned from a U.S. expert as well as strategies to increase sensitivity and anti-bias training among justice sector actor including judges, prosecutors, and police. The discussion also talked about the strategies to engage with the private sector including law schools, law firms, and bar associations, and creating affinity bar associations for Dalits as well as create an effective network of Dalit rights advocates across South Asia. The participants also crafted a joint/regional action plan to engage with the international human rights mechanisms and the press; developing common talking points/advocacy language for international stakeholders.
Among the trainers were Paulette Brown, a U.S. anti-racism expert; Jessica So, a senior human rights adviser; and senior human rights lawyer Brown from London. Additionally, prominent lawyers Shankar Limbu and Tek Tamrakar also conducted training sessions for the participants. The concluding ceremony was honored by the presence of Hon. Padam Giri, the Minister for Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs. He also distributed certificate of participation to the participants.