MANUAL SCAVENGING – The other side of India “Shining”
“Every morning, I go to eight to ten households, collect the garbage (Human excreta) in a straw basket and dump it a mile away from the village. When it rains, the waste oozes through the basket over to my hair,” says Guddi Bai (38) of Nateran tehsil. M.P
The presence of dry latrine poses a challenge in completing the sanitation chain. In India, people belonging to a specific Dalit sub-caste, are forced to complete this chain.
Manual Scavenging: Manual scavenging is considered one of the lowest, most polluting and degrading “occupations”, where mainly people from a Dalit sub caste clean the dry latrines with their hands and dump the human excreta/faeces at the city/village outskirts.
People working as manual scavengers earn as little as Rs.20 to 30 per dry latrine a month. Some don’t even get this meagre wage instead they are given leftover food.
Who are Manual Scavengers: Mostly manual scavengers are from a particular Dalit sub-class. Majority of the manual scavengers are women (95% approx).
In a Sample survey conducted by Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA) 7630 manual scavengers and 34365 Individual Dry latrines were documented in 15 states. For detailed information regarding the same please visit
For pictures of Manual Scavenging please visit
Pictures Manual Scavenging across India
What discrimination they face?
Some of the many examples of discrimination they face on a daily basis
- They are not allowed to enter houses. Even for work they enter from the backdoor.
- They are not allowed to touch anything that belongs to the upper castes.
- Food is thrown at them by the upper castes. Mostly food that is given is stale.
- Given the acute poverty of the manual scavengers their children do not get education. Some who do get enrolled in schools drop out due to severe discrimination that they face. (http://southasia.oneworld.net/Article/caste-discrimination-persisting-in-u-p-schools/ ),
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110426/jsp/orissa/story_13899938.jsp
- Women from this community are not even hired as domestic helps by the upper castes.
Myths:
1) Manual scavenging occurs only in rural/backward villages –This is not true. There are documented cases of manual scavenging even in big towns/villages. For example in a sample survey in Delhi in 2008, 13 people working as manual scavengers were identified. Another example is Meerut, one of the prime towns of UP, only 60kms from the National Capital. During a Sample Survey in Meerut in 2010 392 Manual Scavengers were documented.
2) It is better to work as Manual Scavengers than do nothing, atleast they get some money rather than nothing – Most of the people working as manual scavengers get only as much as about 200 to 400 a month. The paltry amounts that they earn is not even enough for the basic needs of their survival. So basically they survive on leftover food, clothes, utensils etc. Exposed to muck for most part of there working days they develop innumerable fatal diseases. Typhoid, Paratyphoid, Food poisoning, bacillary dysentery, Diarrhoea, intestinal worms, leptospirosis etc are a few of the many diseases that manual scavengers suffer with. They can’t afford decent medication as a result they buy cheap adulterated medicines which aggravates there condition. Ultimately they borrow huge amounts of money to get treatment to save their lives which land them up in debts, impossible for them to pay back. Basically due to the work they end up having to spend much more than they earn!!!!
3) They are lazy people. Why don’t they get a better job? It is much more complicated than this. These are people who have been discriminated and subjugated for centuries into this type of heinous/undignified work and they are treated by the society as “Dirty and only meant for dirty work such as manual scavenging”. People don’t want to hire them for any other jobs except the one that their generations have been doing for thousands of years. Because of the tag “Manual Scavengers”, many opportunities of dignified work are closed to them. With such severe discrimination how can they ever switch their job and unfortunately they end up continuing as manual scavengers.
“If we quit, the upper caste women ridicule us. ‘Tum to panditaain ho gayi ho’ [You seem to act like a Brahmin woman], they say. Moreover, that is the way it has always been going on,” says Basanti Bai (40) of Nateran tehsil. M.P
For more information visit www.safaikarmachariandolan.org
Or
“For ours is a battle, not for wealth or power. It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of human personality” – Dr. B.R Ambedkar
This is just but one of the numerous forms of discriminations among women. Thinking that women constitutes 95% on this ‘manual scavenging’ already depicts how women have been pushed to the very corner, ending up like tiny bits in the society. This is disheartening.
‘It is better to work as Manual Scavengers than do nothing, atleast they get some money rather than nothing’? How could one survive in just 20-30 rupees, and for a month?! This is sick. Seriously.And yes, for sure they’ll end up paying a debt for a meager income that they never really get. It’s like in prostitution. We have been lobbying the passage of the anti-prostitution bill here in the Philippines to stop people from thinking that prostitution is an ‘easy way to get money’.
This is very saddening especially that it’s keeping the women more and more disadvantaged and abused. Sad.