A/HRC/31/56 66. Some caste-affected countries, including India and Nepal, have constitutional and legal requirements to reserve seats for disadvantaged caste groups in legislative bodies. In Pakistan, seats are reserved for non-Muslim minorities. 4. Freedom of religion or belief 67. Caste discrimination exerts a strong influence in the religious sphere. Individuals from the lowest castes may be barred from religious sites, relegated to separate religious buildings or separate spaces and buried in separate cemeteries. 68. Caste-based discrimination on the grounds of religion has a particular impact on women and girls. The existence of practices labelled as “religious dedication” of girls to temple deities, including the Devadasi system, constitutes a de facto form of forced prostitution and sexual slavery, mainly targeting Dalit girls. 44 69. Minority women, many of them from low-caste backgrounds, may be subjected to kidnapping and forced religious conversion. According to the Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of religion or belief, “such incidents seem to occur in a climate of impunity”.45 Civil society organizations have reported several cases of Dalit Hindu girls being kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam following marriage in Pakistan. 46 B. Economic, social and cultural rights 1. Right to work 70. Allocation of labour on the basis of caste is one of the core pillars of caste and caste-like systems, with lower castes typically confined to “polluting”, “filthy” or “impure” tasks and occupations. This labour division is characterized by its extreme rigidity and exclusion, preventing individuals from the lowest strata from changing occupations and largely hindering their labour mobility. Attempts to challenge the established order may result in social punishment, including physical and psychological aggression and community boycotts. 71. Caste-based discrimination confines Dalits in South Asia to certain occupations associated with their caste, which often involve the most menial tasks, such as sanitation jobs.47 In Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, street cleaning and the handling of human waste and animal carcasses are almost exclusively performed by Dalits. 48 72. In India, manual scavenging constitutes a caste-designated occupation that is mainly imposed upon Dalits, particularly Dalit women, who represent 95 per cent of manual scavengers.49 Despite the passing of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act in 2013, the practice reportedly persists, institutionalized 44 45 46 47 48 49 14 Maggie Black, “Women in ritual slavery: Devadasi, Jogini and Mathamma in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, Southern India” (Anti-Slavery International, 2007). See A/67/303, para. 43. Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network and International Dalit Solidarity Network, “Scheduled caste women in Pakistan: denied a life in dignity and respect”, alternative report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its fifty-fourth session (2013), p. 12. International Labour Office, Equality at Work: Tackling the Challenges (2007), pp. 35-36. Human Rights Watch, “Caste discrimination: a global concern” (2001), p. 12. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Solution Exchange, “Social inclusion of manual scavengers” (UNDP, 2012), p. 7. See also Human Rights Watch, Cleaning Human Waste: “Manual Scavenging”, Caste and Discrimination in India (2014).