Team DailyPedia
“When we go manual scavenging, we endure a horrible stench. Instead of wages they give us stale bread.”
Manual scavengers also known as “Untouchables” are forced to collect human and animal waste even when it rains, when someones in labor and even in emergencies, the females sweep dung from open and dry sewers and the males do the much harder job like opening and clearing up septic tanks, hiring manual scavengers has been illegal for decades but is still practiced in a few parts of India where the traditional caste systems are still established.
HRW’s 96-page report, Cleaning Human Waste: , is based on more than 100 interviews with manual scavengers, and documents how these wretched people are coerced to collect human excrement on a daily basis, carrying it away in nothing more protective than a cane basket.
Human Rights Watch a made a 96-page report ‘Manual Scavenging,’ Caste, and Discrimination in India, based on the report a few of the interviewees faced violent threats from the higher caste members if they refuse to do their jobs, others we not allowed to enter churches and others were banned from going to the communal land to feed their livestock. Also these people are often not payed in cash, instead payed by leftovers, grains and old clothes, most of them earn less than 5 dollars a month.These practices are deeply ingrained in thier culture that’s why when people try to leave their jobs and have alternate livelyhoods the society simply rejects them and forces them to go back.
Check out the video report below:
Now HRW is making a movement so that the local government officials enforce the laws properly and prevent the caste practice, and to assist these individuals to find alternative and a much stable livelihood.
