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Overview
Dalit is a name adopted by the lowest caste of Indian society -- the Scheduled Caste (SC). Caste is a "traditional system of rigid social stratification into ranked groups defined by descent and occupation." According to Minority Rights Group, "The term Dalit means 'oppressed', 'broken', or 'crushed' to the extent of losing original identity." Dalit women form the lowest and most marginalized strata of Indian society. As compared with other marginalized communities, they suffer threefold the oppression as a result of the intersectionality of their financial status, gender, and caste. While the Dalit movement focuses on caste- and poverty-related problems, the women's movement emphasizes issues concerning gender and poverty. Since neither the Dalit movement nor the women's movement address issues of oppression due to economic hardship, gender bias, and casteism, issues relating to Dalit women's oppression are usually omitted from the justice discourse. The implications of this omission can be seen in the bleak appraisal of Dalit women as measured through human development indicators. Only recently has the plight of Dalit women surfaced in the international justice discourse as a human rights concern. Despite progress, effective remedial measures to combat caste-based violence are yet to be realized.

Contexts
As a result of their triple oppression, Dalit women are subjected to multiple forms of violence: modern slavery, rape, murder, prostitution, trafficking, physical and verbal abuse, domestic violence, naked parading, witch hunt, manual scavenging, and consumption of feces. Additionally, they are denied access to education, water, justice, healthcare, and land.

Crime
See also: Violence against women in India; Caste-related violence in India

India's National Crimes Record Bureau 2016 report revealed 40,401 cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SCs). Of these reported cases, 3,172 are of assault on SC women to outrage her modesty, 2,514 are of rape, 1,268 are of assault on women, 1,467 are of sexual harassment, 855 are of kidnapping and abduction, 284 are of assault or use of criminal force to women with intent to disrobe, and 134 are of stalking. In 1981, 604 reported rape cases of SC women were by non-SC men. By 2008, there were 1,457 such cases. However, most atrocities against Dalit, and therefore, Dalit women, go unreported. Potential reasons include social humiliation, lack of support from judicial and law enforcement actors and systems, security threats, and reaction of upper-castes.

Dalit women face suffering not only on the hands of upper-castes, but also their own families. Dalit women are exploited under the Devadasi ritual whereby a prepubescent girl is dedicated to or married to a deity or a temple. Originally the ritual was rooted in religious significance, but eventually turned into a method of forced prostitution and ritual slavery when Dalit girls began to be "served as prostitutes to dominant caste community members". Ninety-three percent of Devadasis constitute Dalit females.

Law enforcement
Police brutality and nonchalance exacerbates and perpetuates violence against Dalit women. India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) says that atrocities committed against Dalits, including rape and sexual assault of Dalit women, "are condoned or best ignored" by the police.

UN Resolution 1820 posits rape as a weapon of war, an act committed by a dominant group to ridicule and control a weaker group. Law enforcement officials use sexual assault of Dalit women to police Dalit communities. Most officers also belong to the upper-caste. Consequently, caste bias often leads to wrongful incarceration, character assassination, verbal abuse, collusion with violent actors, and failure to report atrocities against Dalits under the 1989 Prevention of Atrocities Act and the 1995 Protection of Civil Rights Act.

Ruchi, a pregnant 22-year old Dalit woman, was beaten to death by wooden sticks in Uttar Pradesh during a police investigation of illegal alcohol production. Her family claimed the police assumed she was concealing alcohol in her stomach. Their home was also raided based on suspicion. "Ms. Lebra, a mother of three, was accused of stealing her upper-caste neighbor’s jewelry in retaliation for refusing to give him crops from her land. When she was called in by the police for questioning, the police officer began molesting her daughter. When she tried to stop him, he grabbed Ms. Lebra’s hair, pushed her down onto the ground and raped her."

While the exact number of cases of police brutality are unknown, Ruchi and Ms. Lebra formulate a small percentage of the total police brutality cases against Dalit women.

Occupation
Untouchability refers to the "imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in certain castes." Untouchability forms the basis of the jobs assigned and available to lower class Dalit women. Dalit women are usually relegated to "unclean" domestic jobs such as sweeping, cleaning, and disposing human excreta (manual scavenging). Jobs requiring a great deal of manual labor such as road construction and agricultural work are also allotted to Dalit women. These jobs neither teach sanitary and safety protocols nor provide equipment to ensure women's security.

For instance, in scorching heat, tar is laid barefoot for road construction. Furthermore, in the field of agriculture, Dalit women perform manual labor for longer hours than bullocks and men. While bullocks work for 1,064 hours and men work for 1,202 hours on a hectare of land, women work for more than 3,485 hours annually.

Another example is manual scavenging. Around 1.3 million Dalit women are employed for manual scavenging. India's Census 2011 survey estimates the existence of 2.6 million dry latrines of which 73% are in rural areas while 27% are in urban areas. Cleaning such spaces involves handling solid waste with nothing but buckets and baskets for collection and thin boards, tin plates, and brooms for scooping excreta. Even though wages are low, for some manual scavenging is just another means of livelihood, while for others it is a threat."They called our men and said 'If you don't start sending your women to clean our toilets, we will beat them up. We will beat you up. We will not let you live in peace.' We were afraid. - Gangashri from Uttar Pradesh (2014)."

Consequences
References External links:


 * Dalit
 * Caste System In India
 * Women In India
 * Violence Against Women in India
 * Violence against women
 * Crime In India
 * Rape in India
 * Caste-related violence in India
 * Feminism in India