Often human beings complain of the kind of work their bosses make them do. But have they given a thought to the plight of those who don’t have ‘destiny’ as their bosses --- and are made to pick up ‘sh*t’? Sadly enough, the practice of manual scavenging continues to loom over vibrant and fast moving Gujarat and developing India.
During a two-national conference held on manual scavenging at IIMA, the very involvement of ILO in five states including Gujarat, was a boost for NGOs present at the seminar. It was rightly stated by senior specialist, International Labour Standards, International Labour Organisation (ILO), that continuing in a job that simply has no dignity is an inhuman practice.
Manjula Pradeep, executive director of Navsarjan said, “This is purely a caste based occupation and ILO disregards such practices. They are against all kinds of inhuman labour practices.” Pradeep added that for the NGOs working on this subject, it was important how ILO took it forward with the government to ensure such rituals were discontinued.
ILO’s scavenging project focuses on supporting the implementation of the renewed government policy in five states -- Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. This conference was held to understand different forms of scavenging, rehabilitation obstacles the scavenger community faced and ascertain the impact and effectiveness of available government schemes.
ILO has exchanged and gathered information from the manual scavenging community itself following their three zonal consultative meetings which were held in Lucknow, Jaipur and Ahmedabad last year.
Pradeep added, “For women of the Valmiki caste, it is the family, mainly in-laws, who push them out of the house to become manual scavengers as they get tossed about by the higher castes, mainly the Rajputs. An end to this practice will lead to fewer diseases and deaths in society.”
