Manual Scavenging
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, mostly women, 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
Deeply entrenched in South Asian societies.The 2014 Human Rights Watch report Cleaning Human Waste: “Manual Scavenging,” Caste, and Discrimination in India documents that manual scavenging’ persists with the support and collusion of local officials. The report is a key resource in learning more about this practice.
Campaigning to stop manual scavenging
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Committee of Experts urged the Government of India to, “take decisive action to eradicate manual scavenging and to report on nation and state-wide action taken to put an end to this practice and on the progress made in the identification, liberation and rehabilitation of scavengers.