Various minority marginalized groups and their problems:

  1. Women

    2. The marginalization of women is a chronic illness that has plagued our entire world. Women are often marginalized, denied participation or excluded from social decision making processes due to their:

    • Age
    • Gender
    • Occupation
    • Ability to assert themselves fully

    Any kind of marginalization is a grave human rights violation. Women have had to struggle against all kinds of hurtful and senseless assumptions, harmful stereotypes and irrational fears. Unfortunately, we see this marginalization day in and day out. This is a problem of a male dominated mindset, of a society that values men over women. How can we change that?

  2. People with disabilities

    3. The unnecessary and inhuman stigmatization of disability has resulted in the social and economic marginalization of generations with disabilities

    • The proportion of disabled population in India is about 21.9 million.
    • The percentage of disabled population to the total population is about 2.13 per cent.
    • The disabled face various types of barriers while seeking access to health and health services. Plus they are always battling with the mindset of a society that thinks they are much less capable than they are.
  3. Children

    4. In India, a girl child faces discrimination and different access to nutritious food and gender based violence is evident from the falling sex ratio and the use of medical technologies, such as sonographies to eliminate the girl child.

    For both, little boys and girls, marginalisation manifests in various forms ranging from child labour, child trafficking to many other forms of violence and abuse.

    • With an estimated 12.6 million children engaged in hazardous occupations (2001 Census), for instance, India has the largest number of child labourers under the age of 14 in the world.
    • Childline is an organisation in India that exists to serve children in trouble. This is the shocking extent of trouble marginalized Indian children are in:
  4. Religious minorities:

    5. Christians, Muslims, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains form the religious minorities in our country.

    Constitutionally, we are a secular country. Hence, it is the duty of the state to protect religious minorities. India is plagued by many religion-led riots year on year. We hear reports of mosques, churches and temples being vandalized, and soul less politicians play it for their personal gain. Jaago saathiyon jaago! Let’s stand up to the forces of communal and political evil together, informed and aware.