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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Manual scavenging in Meerut: Why are women made to carry excreta on their head for two stale rotis a day? -Kainat Sarfaraz

Manual scavenging in Meerut: Why are women made to carry excreta on their head for two stale rotis a day? -Kainat Sarfaraz

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published Published on Jun 15, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 15, 2017
-The Indian Express

Out of all those engaged in manually removing human excreta, 95 per cent are women. While men are paid in cash, women are mostly paid in kind.

Meerut And New Delhi:
“I started my work as a manual scavenger after my marriage,” says Premi, as she dabs her tears with her faded yellow cotton dupatta. She’s known as ‘Budhiya’ (an old woman) in the Radhna Inayatpur village in Mawana town of Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh. She doesn’t know her age but her wrinkled face and bent frame suggests that she must be in her early 70s. Every morning, 30 women including Premi, leave their homes at 8 am to work as manual scavengers in the village. They go from house to house scraping off human excreta from dry latrines and collecting it in a cane basket. Once all the houses are covered, they carry the basket on their heads and walk to the dumping ground, just next to their settlement in the village, to get rid of the excreta.

Manual scavenging was banned in India in 1993. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013 has outlawed manual cleaning of excrement from insanitary latrines, open drains, or pits and imposes fines on those who construct dry latrines. On March 16, 2017, Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot in response to a question on manual scavenging revealed that 13 States and Union Territories have “reported identification of 12,737 manual scavengers up to January, 2017”. The actual numbers, however, are higher.

Most manual scavenger who clean dry latrines are women

A Human Rights Watch report suggests that out of all those engaged in manual cleaning of dry latrines and removal of human excreta from public streets, 95 per cent are women. Since the toilets are inside the house, those with dry latrines prefer women to clean the excreta instead of men. According to the report, on an average, the women get paid as little as between ten and fifty rupees every month per household, and sometimes as a bonus they are given stale leftover food and worn-out clothes. This is far less than men who earn up to Rs 300 to clean septic tanks and sewer lines on any given day.

“I get two-three dharis (10-15 kgs) of anaaj (food grain) annually for this job. Sometimes, they give me one or two stale rotis,” she says. One dhari of wheat costs something between Rs 70-100. Reena, her daughter-in-law, says that the grains hardly last a week. Premi spends the rest of her day making moti-maala. “That job at least pays her Rs. 30 per day,” says Reena who also works as a manual scavenger along with her daughter.

Premi’s husband worked as a street sweeper before he passed away. She also lost her son a few years ago. Her house, like all Valmiki households, is barely 50 metres from the dumping ground.

Please click here to read more. 
 

The Indian Express, 13 June, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/why-are-women-made-to-carry-excreta-on-their-head-for-two-stale-rotis-a-day/


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