Unabated Deaths of Manual Scavengers Demand Justice, Not Silence
June 8, 2025, New Delhi, India— At a time when the government claims that manual scavenging has been eradicated, the ongoing and preventable deaths of sewer and septic tank workers…
Manual Scavenging
Emerging from the Sewers: Class, Legacy, and the Governance of Sanitation
In India, caste based oppression has long been linked to sanitation and related activities. Dalits make up the majority of these workers, particularly the manual scavengers. These workers, who come…
For modernization and mechanization of sanitation work, Sanitary Workers must exert pressure
At present, the work of cleaning roads, drains and gutters in cities is mostly done manually by sanitation workers. In this, cleaning of roads, drains and gutters and dry latrines…
Continuing Deaths of Sewer Workers Ring Alarm Bells for Improving Safety
In an extremely tragic accident on October 5 in Faridabad (Haryana) four workers who had gone for cleaning sewer of a hospital died due to inhaling poisonous gas. Two of…
Manual Scavenging: Deep Rooted Problem In India
The basic need of people accommodate food, clothing and shelter. These three are important for the existence and survival of human beings, but presently, survival is not the only segment…
Why Self-Employment Schemes for Those Leaving Manual Scavenging Have Not Progressed
If the poorest of the poor people must get the topmost priority in terms of welfare programs, then surely those households who have been employed in manual scavenging (MS) work…
For Scheme Meant for the Poorest, Only 19% of allocated funds were actually used
While the dalit community has been always known for higher levels of poverty as well as social discrimination, even within the dalits there is a sub-section known for even worse…
Justice to Sanitation Workers Must Move Beyond Verbal Appreciation
Q-Who are the workers who perform the most essential tasks, also earn the highest appreciation but get the least justice? Ans. -Sanitation workers. Since historical times, sanitation workers have suffered…
Sewer Workers Need Safety, Dignity and Justice
Some of the saddest news in India which appears with tragic regularity relates to the deaths of sewer workers caused by occupational hazards. The demand for fixing responsibility and taking…
Important Factors Hinder Rehabilitation of Workers Freed From Manual Scavenging
Although securing freedom for workers engaged in manual scavenging and providing rehabilitation for them is supposed to be an important priority for the government, in reality progress has been very…
Lack of water supply makes sanitation workers manually scavenge Indian toilets, says Toilet woman of India
Written by Sabha Zaidi and Neha Kumar Interview with Pragya Akhilesh in Ahmedabad, Gujarat while she is on a country Union Tour to assess the toilets in semi-urban and rural…
The fight against Manual Scavenging
Manual scavenging is the age-old unfortunate practice of cleaning, carrying, and disposing human excreta from dry latrines or sewers into the disposal sites. Despite prohibitive legislations in place, a government…
Manual scavenging and the failure of the social machinery
No person in the world would tout the practice of manual scavenging to be beneficial to society or a desirable outcome to be pursued. Many people would feel nauseated just…
Manual Scavenging: a blot on the Indian Society
If you cannot modify something you have to destroy it completely and rebuild. We need to destroy the whole caste system - Mr. Bezwada Manual Scavenging: a heinous practice While…
Why the manual scavengers still haven’t gotten their rights?
One of modern India’s great shames is the official failure to eradicate manual scavenging, the most degrading surviving practice of untouchability in the country. - Harsh Mandar, Human Rights Activist…
Manual Scavenging: Why law alone cannot solve the crisis?
In no country, people are sent to gas chambers to die -Hon’ble Supreme Court of India on manual scavenging The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment)…
Safai Karmcharis and the alternatives for their betterment
Dr Hemangi Kadlak in Conversation with Vidya Bhushan Rawat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e3DBi9PAkU&feature=youtu.be Dr. Hemangi Kadlak is a native of Maharashtra, India. She did her Ph.D. from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.…
Manual Scavenging in India: Caste Privileges and the Continuing Search for the ‘Ideal Bhangi’
Co-Written by Aseem Hasnain, Abhilasha Srivastava and Avinav Kumar Sudharak Olwe’s photographs of conservancy workers in Mumbai are heartbreaking. They depict the lives and work of sanitation workers, as much…
Outlawed practice of manual scavenging sees a fourfold growth
Growth has remained the buzzword in Indian polity for decades now. It started after the unprecedented economic crisis that the country faced in early 1990s and never really went away…
Why does manual scavenging continue to exist in Tamil Nadu?
Co-Written by V. Ramaswamy & V. Srinivasan “Few object to liberty in the sense of a right to free movement, in the sense of a right to life and limb.…
Death Of A Dalit Youth While Cleaning Sewage Tank
A report on the murder of of Dalit Youth Prithviraj by making him go down to clean a Sewage Tank at the housing complex (Jatti Dwarakamayi Villa) owned by family…
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