Activist Beena Johnson becomes first Dalit woman to address UN General Assembly

Beena Johnson, the General Secretary of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) became the first Dalit woman to address the United Nations General Assembly on September 18. She said that principles of non-discrimination should be upheld if poverty has to be eradicated, and that there is a need for specific mechanisms to support women and transgender communities within the discriminated and vulnerable population. She was speaking during the second Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit that was held in New York last month to review the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“I am a person belonging to the Dalit community, representing the stakeholder group on communities discriminated on work and dissent, including Dalits, Haratin, Roma, Killambola, and other people who are socially and economically excluded and discriminated intergenerationally. We number around 270 million across all continents together with the indigenous people, Afro-descendant people, people with disability, LGBTQIA+. Within these marginalized communities we are the ones who actually are the ‘leave no one behind’ that the SDGs are currently focusing on,” she said. “Leave No One Behind” is a pledge of the 2030 SDG that was adopted by members of the UN in 2015. 

Stating that there is a need to overhaul the financial architecture, Beena put forth a multi-layered approach with which it should be done. “First we need to take into consideration the debt trap the southern nations are facing. This is a crime and we cannot allow a huge proportion of our nations budgets in many countries over 50% to be spent on debt servicing. This must be dealt with ruthlessly to ensure there’s a massive debt relief strategy. There’s another layer which we normally ignore within the SDG mechanism, the intra-national fiscal infrastructure in both the northern and southern countries which are excluding socially marginalized from accessing the financial resources of the national budgets and wealth.This is equally critical.”

She also suggested six things that can be followed by the UN to achieve the SDG goals.

“Community engagement: involve the rights holder communities and decision making processes regarding the allocation of funds and investments to ensure their needs and priorities are addressed; Targeted Budgeting: set portion of the nations budget should be set aside to specially make them available to micro development of individuals, families and habitations where the socially excluded communities live. Some countries like India, Brazil and Mexico have adopted some of these significant steps; Socially responsible investment funds: promote the creation and growth of SRI [Socially Responsible Investment] funds; Inclusive financial services: local and community based financing, international support engage with international organizations and donor agencies and development banks to mobilize financial resources; Engendering financial inclusion: we must also have specific mechanism to deal and to help support women and trans communities within these discriminated and vulnerable population.”

“If we are serious about making poverty history, we must indulge in the principles of non discrimination and equitable resource mobilization towards a resilient, inclusive and equitable development,” she added.