Caste in Britain: Experts' Seminar and Stakeholders' Workshop

Abstract

Background and methodology In April 2013, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act was enacted. Section 97 of the Act requires government to introduce a statutory prohibition of caste discrimination into British equality law by making caste an aspect of the protected characteristic of race in the Equality Act 2010. In the context of this direction, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) contracted a team of academics drawn from different research institutions to carry out an independent study on caste in Britain. Alongside a detailed review of socio-legal research on this issue (Dhanda et al, 2014a), the project involved two events: an experts' seminar and a stakeholders' workshop reported on here (Dhanda et al, 2014b). The experts' seminar was aimed at experts on caste and discrimination from law and the social sciences, while the workshop brought together stakeholder groups including representatives from community and faith organisations, employers and service providers. The aims of both events were: • to bring together interdisciplinary expertise and a range of stakeholder views on caste, and discrimination on the basis of caste, in the UK; • to explore views on UK and international law in relation to caste; and • to identify concerns and find common ground in relation to the implementation of the amended equalities law when it includes caste as an aspect of race. Both events addressed three specific questions: how caste should be defined in the Equality Act 2010; what Exceptions and Exclusions for caste should be placed in the Equality Act 2010; and how caste should be related to the Public Sector Equality Duty.