Second-class citizen

Second class citizen is an informal term used to describe a person who is discriminated against or generally treated unequally within a state or other political jurisdiction. While not necessarily slaves or criminals, second class citizens have limited legal rights and economic opportunities, and are often subject to mistreatment or neglect at the hands of their putative superiors.

A second-class citizen's status may be de jure or de facto and is generally regarded as a violation of human rights. Typical impediments facing second-class citizens include disenfranchisement (a lack of voting rights), limitations on civil or military service, as well as restrictions on language, religion, caste and education.

Examples include:

• African Americans before the Civil Rights Era.
• The native black population of the former apartheid society of South Africa.
• Native Indians under British India.
• Dalits Dalit_(outcaste) in India.
• Burakumins Burakumin in Japan.
• Blacks in Cuba
• Jews, Roma, homosexuals and other "undesirables" in Nazi Germany.
• Women and non-Muslims in Islamic countries.
• Political dissidents and "class enemies" in Cold War-era eastern Europe.
• Iraq's Kurdish and Shia population under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

The term is generally used as a pejorative or in the context of civil society activism and governments will typically deny the existence of a second-class within the polity, except in the cases of segregation in the United States, apartheid in South Africa, and the German Nazi rulers.