Worse Than Slavery: Indian Sewer Divers

After the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act 2013 came into being, the government recognised 12,742 manual scavengers in 13 states. 82% were in Uttar Pradesh. Activists, politicians and even the Supreme Court have said that this number is a gross under representation, so have the government’s own statistics. According to Census of India 2011, there are 740,078 households across the country where human excreta is removed by a person from a dry latrine. On top of this, there are also septic tanks, sewers, railway platforms from where human excreta is cleaned by people. In addition, the Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 said that there are 182,505 families in rural India engaged in manual scavenging. In March 2014, the Supreme Court of India declared that there were 96 lakhs (9.6 million) dry latrines being manually emptied but the exact number of manual scavengers is still disputed.

One of the major objective of Swachh Bharat Mission is to improve the quality of life which also includes the communities engaged with manual scavenging and establish sanitation as way of leading life beyond untouchability and impurity. There is no doubt SBM is able to increase the number of families with access to individual toilets but whether this program could able to bring sanitation as human rights issue while breaking all the taboos and myths is still a question to be pondered upon. States have been reporting to GoI and Supreme Court on converting insanitary toilets into an improved sanitary facilities but is anyone interested to review the condition/fate of sanitary workers engaged with manual cleaning of toilets or sewer? 

One article by Mr Azaz Ashraf published on 12th September 2017 stated that more Indians die cleaning sewers than fighting terrorists in India. Since 2010, there have been 356 such deaths, or about 44 every year. In 2017 the supreme court passed strictures against the governments, both at the centre and in states, for sending people into manholes without even protective gear, and ordered Rs10 lakh to be paid to the survivors of each of those who died in the line of duty—that is, cleaning the underground gutters. 

In last few days, 5 workers have died in Delhi while cleaning sewer. Councillor of the ward demanded a compensation of Rs.  50 lakh each for the families of the five workers. Workers entering manholes to clean them by hand is a process known as manual scavenging. This is actually illegal in India and has been since 2013. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act said the process should be entirely mechanised due to the dangers of the sewer environment in which manual scavengers work. However, loopholes in the law exist. Contractors regularly take advantage of those loopholes to clear India’s manholes and sewers rapidly in order to cut prices.

While speaking with some of the labourers in Mumbai many of them believe that they are borne to do this and it is their fate. I was struck with the naked reality of life.

Caste is governed by an obsession with purity. Traditionally, food or water touched by Dalits is considered to be spoiled; in extreme cases, even their shadows were regarded as polluting. This apartheid persists, even in Indian cities, in the name of sewer cleaners. It is high time sanitation and sanitation value chain to be seen as human rights issue including the service providers and accept this as an issue to be addressed immediately. If this flagship program cannot offer the scope to liberate manual scavengers and sewer workers we will see every day a sewer divers risking his life for living and raise his family