A/HRC/31/56 caste groups, including sweeping, manual scavenging (cleaning of excreta from dry latrines) and disposal of dead animals; (c) Untouchability practices: a set of collective behaviours and norms stemming from the belief that contact with individuals from lower castes is “polluting”; (d) Enforced endogamy: inter-caste interactions are limited and in some cases de facto prohibited. Manifestations of enforced endogamy include limitations or prohibitions on inter-caste marriages, commensality (the practice of eating together) and sharing common goods or services. Attempts to challenge these prohibitions are often severely punished through violence against caste-affected individuals and retaliation against their communities. 29. Existing pervasive and entrenched stigma of individuals and groups ascribed to “lower caste” strata permeates caste systems. As highlighted by the former Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, stigma can be understood as “a process of dehumanizing, degrading, discrediting and devaluing people in certain population groups, often based on a feeling of disgust”. 9 The process of “dehumanization” of individuals and groups owing to their low caste status begins with the association between such status and the notions of “pollution”, “filthiness” and “untouchability”, resulting in them being considered “impure” and “unworthy”. This process evolves into widespread social segregation of affected individuals and communities who are confined to separate physical spaces and, as mentioned above, to certain degrading jobs from which they cannot break free. This imposed marginalization becomes an externalized and internalized social norm that eventually legitimatizes mistreatment and abuses against affected communities, perpetuating discrimination and patterns of human rights violations against them. 30. Stigmatization and dehumanization of affected communities is further reinforced by negative stereotypes in the media and, as the Special Rapporteur has noted previously,10 the repeated presentation of broad negative stereotypes of minority groups as, inter alia, “dirty”, which nurtures inaccurate and false assumptions and opinions that may eventually develop into discriminatory attitudes and entrenched prejudices. C. Global overview of caste-affected groups 31. Estimates indicate that over 250 million people suffer from caste-based discrimination worldwide.11 Though the highest numbers of affected communities are concentrated in South Asia, particularly India and Nepal, discrimination on the grounds of caste or analogous status is a global phenomenon and can be found in other geographical contexts, including in Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific region, as well as in diaspora communities. Although the following examples are not exhaustive, they aim to be illustrative of caste-affected communities in different regions. Asia 32. Dalits constitute the largest caste-affected group in South Asia. They comprise a myriad of sub-caste groups and, although subjected to similar forms of discrimination across the region, the situation of Dalits in caste-affected countries differs for historical and 9 10 11 See A/HRC/21/42, para. 12. See A/HRC/28/64, para. 62. www.unicef.org/protection/discrimination.html. 7