Winchester
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Manual scavenging, the removing of human excreta from dry latrines, railroad tracks and sewers by hand, is a caste-based and hereditary occupation form of slavery reserved exclusively for Dalits
It is estimated that around 1.3 million Dalits in India, mostlywomen, make their living through manual scavenging – a term used to describe the job of removing human excrement from dry toilets and sewers using basic tools such as thin boards, buckets and baskets, lined with sacking, carried on the head.
Manual scavengers earn as little as one rupee a day. Dalit scavengers are rarely able to take up another occupation due to discrimination related to their caste and occupational status, and are thus forced to remain scavengers. They are paid less than minimum wages and are often forced to borrow money from upper-caste neighbours in order to survive and consequently they end up maintaining the relationship of bondage.
Manual scavenging is not a career chosen voluntarily by workers, but is instead a deeply unhealthy, unsavoury and undignified job forced upon these people because of the stigma attached to their caste. The nature of the work itself then reinforces that stigma. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2013
The Victims
While the central government enacts laws, state representatives in panchayats, elected village councils, and municipal corporations too often not only fail to implement prohibitions on manual scavenging by private households, but also perpetuate the practice. In Maharashtra state, for instance, panchayats have recruited people to manually clean toilets and open defecation areas on the basis of their caste, even denying them other jobs for which they are qualified within the panchayat. While panchayats compensate families that clean dry toilets, drains, and open defecation sites with housing and wages, many of those employed told Human Rights Watch that they are denied regular wages and have been warned that they will be evicted from their houses if they refuse manual scavenging work.
The panchayat in Nhavi village in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district hired nine women and men to manually clean open defecation sites. Bimal told Human Rights Watch that she does not want to clean excrement, but has continued to do so because she fears her family will be thrown out of the home where she lives:
We have farming and labor work, but then if I go for farming work I get threats from the panchayat—“If you don’t work, empty the house.” I am afraid to lose my house. If I had a place to live I would not do this dirty work.
Bimal’s husband, Kailash, has a college education, but began manually cleaning toilets in Nhavi in 1989 when he was unable to find alternate employment. He said, “I studied commerce and banking, but I couldn’t find work. Even though I am educated, the panchayathired me to clean toilets because I am from this community.”
Some women said they faced threats of violence when they refused to practice manual scavenging. In November 2012, when Gangashri along with 12 other women in Parigama village in Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri district voluntarily stopped cleaning dry toilets, men from the dominant Thakur caste came to their homes and threatened to deny them grazing rights and expel them from the village. Despite these threats, the women refused to return to manual scavenging. Soon after, some 20 to 30 upper caste men from Parigama confronted the community. Gangashri recalls:
They called our men and said “If you don’t start sending your women to clean our toilets, we will beat them up. We will beat you up.” They said, “We will not let you live in peace.” We were afraid.
Manisha who lives in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri district cleans toilets in 20 homes every day. "I use a tin plate and broom to remove the excrement that has collected in the toilet, I collect the excrement in a basket, and then I take it and throw it away. This work is so awful I don't feel like eating," she says.
For people who practice manual scavenging, untouchability and social exclusion are inextricably linked. Manjula Pradeep, executive director of Navsarjan, a Gujarat based nongovernmental organization that has worked for decades around this issue explains:
Manual scavenging is itself a form of caste-based violence and needs to be understood that way. It is degrading, it is imposed upon very vulnerable people, and in order to leave manual scavenging, they have to make themselves even more vulnerable— they risk backlash, they don’t know how they will live
VISUALS......
Sources:
Cleaning Human Waste | Human Rights Watch
Manual Scavenging - International Dalit Solidarity Network
BBC News - In pictures: India's 'untouchable' scavengers
@Atanz Can you believe this???
It is estimated that around 1.3 million Dalits in India, mostlywomen, make their living through manual scavenging – a term used to describe the job of removing human excrement from dry toilets and sewers using basic tools such as thin boards, buckets and baskets, lined with sacking, carried on the head.
Manual scavengers earn as little as one rupee a day. Dalit scavengers are rarely able to take up another occupation due to discrimination related to their caste and occupational status, and are thus forced to remain scavengers. They are paid less than minimum wages and are often forced to borrow money from upper-caste neighbours in order to survive and consequently they end up maintaining the relationship of bondage.
Manual scavenging is not a career chosen voluntarily by workers, but is instead a deeply unhealthy, unsavoury and undignified job forced upon these people because of the stigma attached to their caste. The nature of the work itself then reinforces that stigma. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2013
The Victims
While the central government enacts laws, state representatives in panchayats, elected village councils, and municipal corporations too often not only fail to implement prohibitions on manual scavenging by private households, but also perpetuate the practice. In Maharashtra state, for instance, panchayats have recruited people to manually clean toilets and open defecation areas on the basis of their caste, even denying them other jobs for which they are qualified within the panchayat. While panchayats compensate families that clean dry toilets, drains, and open defecation sites with housing and wages, many of those employed told Human Rights Watch that they are denied regular wages and have been warned that they will be evicted from their houses if they refuse manual scavenging work.
The panchayat in Nhavi village in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district hired nine women and men to manually clean open defecation sites. Bimal told Human Rights Watch that she does not want to clean excrement, but has continued to do so because she fears her family will be thrown out of the home where she lives:
We have farming and labor work, but then if I go for farming work I get threats from the panchayat—“If you don’t work, empty the house.” I am afraid to lose my house. If I had a place to live I would not do this dirty work.
Bimal’s husband, Kailash, has a college education, but began manually cleaning toilets in Nhavi in 1989 when he was unable to find alternate employment. He said, “I studied commerce and banking, but I couldn’t find work. Even though I am educated, the panchayathired me to clean toilets because I am from this community.”
Some women said they faced threats of violence when they refused to practice manual scavenging. In November 2012, when Gangashri along with 12 other women in Parigama village in Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri district voluntarily stopped cleaning dry toilets, men from the dominant Thakur caste came to their homes and threatened to deny them grazing rights and expel them from the village. Despite these threats, the women refused to return to manual scavenging. Soon after, some 20 to 30 upper caste men from Parigama confronted the community. Gangashri recalls:
They called our men and said “If you don’t start sending your women to clean our toilets, we will beat them up. We will beat you up.” They said, “We will not let you live in peace.” We were afraid.
Manisha who lives in Uttar Pradesh's Mainpuri district cleans toilets in 20 homes every day. "I use a tin plate and broom to remove the excrement that has collected in the toilet, I collect the excrement in a basket, and then I take it and throw it away. This work is so awful I don't feel like eating," she says.
For people who practice manual scavenging, untouchability and social exclusion are inextricably linked. Manjula Pradeep, executive director of Navsarjan, a Gujarat based nongovernmental organization that has worked for decades around this issue explains:
Manual scavenging is itself a form of caste-based violence and needs to be understood that way. It is degrading, it is imposed upon very vulnerable people, and in order to leave manual scavenging, they have to make themselves even more vulnerable— they risk backlash, they don’t know how they will live
VISUALS......
Sources:
Cleaning Human Waste | Human Rights Watch
Manual Scavenging - International Dalit Solidarity Network
BBC News - In pictures: India's 'untouchable' scavengers
@Atanz Can you believe this???
