1 donorDistinguished Chair, Delegates, Colleagues, and Special Rapporteur, First, I would like to thank the International Dalit Solidarity Network, especially its Executive Director, Meena Varma, for inviting me to share my thoughts in this important session in Geneva. I would also like to thank Special Rapporteur on Minority issues for asking me to speak on the topic of rethinking minority rights defenders and their roles. I come from Nepal, a country where people of certain groups are denied their basic human rights just because they are born into certain caste-groups. I come from a country where certain people are beaten, murdered, and raped just because they touch a person of another caste, or for daring to use a public water tap or a well, or falling in love or marrying a man or woman outside of their caste group. For example, at the beginning of the pandemic, in May 2020, six young men were killed by a mob of villagers and thrown into a river just because one of them loved a girl from so-called higher or dominant caste. Again, in May 2020, a 13-year-old minor, named Angira Pasi, was raped by a ‘dominant’ caste boy. She was forced into marriage with the rapist by the village council. She was later found hanged under suspicious circumstances. And, I come from a country where all the grave human rights violations of these kinds—even murders and rapes—are rarely prosecuted. These people, whose basic human rights have been denied, are the people known as Dalits. Considered to have been at the bottom of Nepal’s caste hierarchy. Dalits are also called Untouchables or the lowest or oppressed castes. Today, I am going to speak about my own experience as a Dalit minority and human rights defender in Nepal as well as about my collaboration with hundreds of Dalit