http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070204/wl_sthasia_afp/indiacastehealth_070204190014
Manual waste disposal occupies millions in India, despite ban by Parul Gupta Sun Feb 4, 2:09 PM ET When Sudha wed her sewage cleaner husband two decades ago, she had little idea she would be picking up human excreta for a living as many other low-caste Indians do despite a ban on the practice. She covers her face with her dupatta, and goes about her job of cleaning drains with a broom, putting the waste into a cane basket. In the drain are faeces from homes which have no sewage system to dispose off the waste. Sudha had never been to school and never worked, and did not realise she would join the family profession. The mother of four was introduced to the job known as "manual scavenging" by her mother-in-law when she married into the family of cleaners. "It was revolting at first. I could not eat for four days. If I had said 'no' then, my mother-in-law would have asked 'just who do you think you are?'" says Sudha in her one-room hut, reluctant to be photographed doing her job. She is one of over a dozen people doing the job in New Delhi's eastern Shahdara district, where many residential areas are constructed illegally and do not have proper sewage systems. According to government estimates, there are more than 600,000 manual scavengers nationwide. Activist groups working to abolish the practice put the number at around 1.3 million and say there is a widespread ignorance of the ban even among government officials. In several other states outside Delhi, the job is even worse, if possible, than collecting human waste by hand. Instead, a tin plate is taken from "dry" latrines which have no flush, the waste that has been deposited on it is put into a basket which is then carried on the head to a disposal site. In 1993, the government banned the practice, which existed for centuries before flush toilets were introduced. Under the law, construction of dry toilets is banned and the existing ones are supposed to be demolished. The law also provides for retraining of people doing the job. The national government set 2007 as the deadline for eradicating the practice, but officials admit privately that it would take at least three more years to find new employment for the workers. "We can demolish the dry toilets, but what about rehabilitation? And flush toilets will also have to be provided. It will take three more years," said a senior official of the government-run National Commission for Sweepers, which works for the welfare of street sweepers. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the problem was about implementation and accused state governments of misusing funds. Activists say the government has squandered several billion rupees, or several hundred million dollars, on the programme but achieved little. "Most of the time, the government is in denial. Many state governments have told the Supreme Court there are no dry toilets in their region," said Bezwada Wilson, founder of the Sweepers Movement, which filed the case in the top court for implementation of the ban. A majority of people in the profession are "dalits" who have been at the bottom of Hinduism's ancient caste hierarchy in which people were divided on the basis of their profession. Priests top the ladder, followed by warriors and traders. Dalits did jobs considered lowly and impure, such as scavenging and disposing of dead bodies and hence were treated as untouchables. Discrimination on the basis of caste is banned, but India's nearly 16 million dalits remain among the poorest, despite affirmative action plans by the government. Among low-caste professions are trash collectors called kabadiwallahs who buy and sell refuse such as paper and plastic while others perform a variety of manual chores under the term sweeper but which can include cleaning public toilets. Even among the dalits, there are sub-castes: the cobbler and barber communities are considered higher than the scavengers, most of whom are women. "This work is given to the most marginalised people. And in a patriarchal set-up, women always face the brunt," says Wilson, adding women make up more than two-thirds of all manual scavengers. The practice was widely institutionalised during British colonial rule with "people specifically appointed for the purpose," Wilson says. Before British rule, most people would defecate in the open, away from neighbourhoods in fields or forests. But as cities expanded, public sanitation became important. "Technology is supposed to remove social prejudice; however, the technology of sanitation was structured to deepen social prejudice in India," writes author Gita Ramaswamy in her book "India Stinking" about scavengers in Andhra Pradesh state. The Sweepers Movement says government loans that were meant to help people leave the profession have instead turned them into defaulters, as the loans were too small for them to learn new skills or start their own businesses. Scavengers get as little as 10 rupees (2.2 cents) a month from each household to clean the drain in front of the house. Chandravati, who is over 70 and like many Indians uses a single name, takes home about 300 rupees (6.60 dollars) a month. When she is lucky, she also gets a slice of chapati bread from her employers. "They throw the chapati at us from a distance. If this is not untouchability, then what is? We are not allowed into the house," she says, flashing a toothless smile. She walks two kilometres (1.2 miles) daily to the neighbourhood where she works as she cannot afford any transport, and spends about six hours piling up the waste and dumping it on empty land outside the neighbourhood. Sudha's family say they do not face much discrimination because they hardly socialise and most of their neighbours are from the lower castes. But sometimes their children are taunted at school. "Sometimes, they call us sweepers at school to ridicule us," says Sudha's 12-year-old daughter Alka. Most people employed in the profession are unaware of the ban, but Chandravati says she has heard politicians say the practice will be abolished. "(Former prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi had said his government will give jobs to people like us. But I am too old to do anything else now," she says. "Now this job will die only when I die," Sudha says. Former sweeper Meena, who is now an activist, says breaking the prejudice is not easy. "Once I got a job as a sweeper in a private school. But when they found out what I did before, they threw me out. I did not even bother to collect my salary for the few weeks I had worked there," she said, explaining that her new job does not involve handling human excreta. Meena now identifies other scavengers and reports them to a non-profit organisation so that they can be listed for benefits. "This new work has given me dignity and a sense of purpose. As they say: filthy work leads to a filthy mind. I could think of doing nothing better earlier. Now, I can think of changing other's lives." Activist Wilson, whose parents also picked up faeces for a living, recounts how such prejudice led to the launch of his campaign. "When I went to a government employment exchange in the 1980s, they saw my name and said: there is tough competition for other jobs, but you will get the easy job of a sweeper. "I started crying," he says.
