Dalits demand social safety net
Dalit communities face social discrimination in our country. They are being deprived of adequate national services. But these people make up one percent of the total manpower of the country, contributing to the national income.
Speakers said this at a citizens’ dialogue on strengthening capacity of national stakeholders and promoting the rights of Dalits. Non-government organisation Dhrubo held the citizens’ dialogue with help from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) yesterday at Purbanchal dialogue center of Khulna city.
Speakers also said that most of the government’s safety net projects are at the village level, although the poorest 37 percent of Dalit population live in suburb areas of cities. At the grassroots level, the participation of Dalits is also very limited. Most of them do not know about this great initiative of the government to alleviate poverty. People in the community demanded to bring Dalit people under the social security net.
According to the dialogue, the number of Dalits in the country are 1.6 million while their education rate is only 5 to 6 percent. Around 95 percent children of the community have been suffering from malnutrition. They don’t know about reproductive health. They are more prone to pregnancy complications due to early marriage.
Dalit people demanded allotment of khas land to the community, arranging healthy housing system, establishing pre-primary schools for them, allocation of required coaching and education scholarships for all Dalit students and allocation of maternity allowance.
Khulna District Awami League President and Zila Parishad Chairman Sheikh Harunur Rashid was present as the chief guest who urged all women to come forward and work together to improve the quality of life of Dalit people in preventing child marriage.
Uttam Das, chief executive of Dhrubo; Rekha Maria Bairagi, director of the organisation; Abdus Sobhan, Khalishpur social services officer; Suraiya Siddiqua, Dacope women’s affairs officer; Ashok Kumar Saha, coordinator of BLAST Khulna, and hundreds of Dalit students and parents from different villages were present among others at the dialogue.
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