Why Work and Descent Still Define Human Worth for Millions Worldwide
Responding to Centuries-Old Systems of Exclusion That Trap Communities Across Continents
June 27, 2025
Caste is not new to Indians or many South Asians. For centuries, Dalits have faced deep-rooted discrimination, exclusion and poverty because of a rigid social order that links a person’s descent to their assigned work. But this kind of inherited inequality is not just an Indian story. Over 260 million people across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and even North America face similar treatment. Addressing it will require both building a coordinated, global institutional response and confronting the deeper human impulse to rank and divide.
The discriminated communities include Dalits in India and neighbouring countries, Burakumin in Japan, Quilombolas in Brazil, Roma in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic; Sinti in Germany, Austria, France, Italy and the Netherlands; Oru (also known as Osu) in Nigeria; and Haratin in Mauritania, Mali and Niger. What connects them is the inherited stigma tied to their traditional work, often seen as dirty, dangerous or degrading, according to the Global Forum of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (GFoD), which is leading global efforts to address the issue.
The UN and civil society groups refer to them as Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD), a term that has yet to enter public discourse in most of the affected countries and regions, largely because the media has failed to recognise and report on it.
For example, have you heard that, like Dalits in South Asia, the Haratins in Mauritania face a similar history? Seen as descendants of slaves once owned by the Arab-Berber elite, they have long been confined to roles such as blacksmithing, farm work, domestic labour and other low-paid, low-“status” jobs passed down through generations. In 2014, the UN estimated that up to half of the Haratin population lived in conditions resembling slavery, especially as domestic workers or bonded labourers.
Similarly, in Europe, the Roma – originally from India – have long faced discrimination based on their darker skin and distinct customs. For centuries, they were pushed into work like metalwork, performing arts and waste collection, barred from owning land or entering most professions. Today, Roma communities across the continent still face poor housing, unequal access to education and widespread job discrimination.
In Japan, the Burakumin have been excluded for their historical association with slaughterhouses and leather trades. Brazil’s Quilombolas are descendants of Africans who escaped slavery and formed settlements. Even today, they often lack secure land rights and work in low-income informal jobs.
In Africa and Yemen, descendants of enslaved peoples are locked into roles like cleaning or labouring – assigned not by skill, but by social status.
Global Institutional Response
In all these cases, your birth defines your job, and your job defines your place in society.
The Inclusivity Project and the GFoD have been releasing detailed reports calling for global recognition and legal action. As a result of sustained efforts by the UN, civil society groups and platforms like the GFoD, discrimination based on work and descent is gaining overdue recognition in international human rights law.
The UN’s Durban Declaration (2001) identified it as a serious form of structural discrimination, and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has called on states to adopt legal protections for affected communities. The latest report by the GFoD has urged governments, civil society and businesses to outlaw caste-based practices, promote affirmative action and combat modern forms of slavery.
This requires countries to pass clear anti-discrimination laws, allocate targeted budgets and policies for CDWD communities, and collect disaggregated data to track progress. GFoD also recommends setting up working groups that include CDWD representatives, human rights institutions and civil society actors to address these issues across the world.
But laws alone are not enough. We also need to understand how this form of discrimination became so widespread across such different cultures throughout human history.
Deeper Human Impulse
Anthropologists say early hunter-gatherer societies were mostly egalitarian. People shared food, moved together, and had no permanent leaders. Status wasn’t inherited, according to anthropologist Richard Lee. Among the !Kung San people in southern Africa, hunters were expected to stay humble. If someone bragged, others mocked them until they stopped. As one elder said, “We always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way, we cool his heart and make him gentle.”
Anthropologist Christopher Boehm described these deliberate checks on power as “reverse dominance hierarchies.”
But things changed with farming. Agriculture created food surpluses. Surplus created property. Property led to control. As some families accumulated land and goods, others became dependent. Jobs became fixed. Birth started to determine people’s role. Cities and kingdoms formalised these divisions, and rulers claimed they were born to rule.
Religion played a dual role. In early societies, spiritual beliefs were more fluid. Hunter-gatherers revered nature and ancestral spirits, and expressed spirituality through rituals, art and oral traditions. As farming began, dependence on natural cycles shifted spiritual focus from animistic beliefs to specific deities of rain, sun, fertility and the sky god.
Temples became central places not just for worship but for storing grain, managing land, and slowly, political control. Priests became full-time professionals – spiritual leaders, yes, but also power brokers. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, temples controlled land and trade. In South Asia, the caste system was codified in texts like the Manusmriti.
Religion also began to offer moral codes that legitimised elite power as divinely ordained. Ancient laws like the Code of Ur-Nammu and Hammurabi’s Code imposed different punishments depending on a person’s social rank. Hurting a high-status person meant harsher penalties.
In Manusmriti, a Brahmin might pay a fine for theft, but a Shudra could be mutilated or killed for the same act.
In Judaism, going back to Biblical times and into Rabbinic Judaism (circa 1st century CE onward), tribal and gender-based laws reinforced a stratified social order. Even when religious texts promoted compassion or equality, religious institutions across these traditions often aligned with political rulers to maintain control. Slavery, in particular, was accepted and regulated—not challenged—by most major religions well into the 19th century.
From the 7th century onward, Islamic legal and social systems developed around patriarchal interpretations that reinforced class and gender hierarchies. While Islamic texts acknowledged the humanity of slaves and prescribed certain rights, slavery remained a recognised institution for centuries, and women's roles were limited by male-dominated readings of scripture.
Later in Europe, Christian doctrine was used by some elite to justify both slavery and monarchy. It became especially prominent between the 15th and 18th centuries. Papal bulls in the mid-1400s, such as Dum Diversas (1452) and Romanus Pontifex (1455), authorised the enslavement of non-Christians, laying the groundwork for the transatlantic slave trade. During the same period, the “divine right of kings” emerged as a dominant political doctrine in early modern Europe, particularly in 16th- and 17th-century monarchies such as those in France and England, where kings claimed authority directly from God and were considered above secular challenge.
However, there were traditions that resisted hierarchy.
As early as the 6th century BCE, Buddhism rejected caste distinctions and welcomed people from all backgrounds into its monastic order, valuing conduct over birth. Much later, from the 18th and 19th centuries, Christian abolitionists in Europe and North America began using their faith to challenge slavery.
During the 18th-century Enlightenment, philosophers argued for human equality based on reason and universal rights, rather than religious authority. In the 20th century, movements like liberation theology in Latin America and the U.S. civil rights movement drew on religious teachings to confront injustice.
Change has happened over time, largely because of social struggles. But it has been slow and uneven, which is why this kind of discrimination still exists in 2025. History shows that these systems of exclusion weren’t inevitable. They were created.
And that means they can be dismantled. Like the early hunter-gatherers who pushed back against pride and status, it’s time to confront exclusion again. Inequality must be named and shamed, and every person—regardless of their work or background—must be treated with respect and equality.
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