News and Events

India human scavengers given a new lease of life
Date:03-NOV-2008

Betwa Sharma: United Nations

USHA Chaumar was seven years old when she began collecting human excrement with her mother in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan.

By the age of 10, she had married and, with her mother-in-law, continued going from house to house performing this demeaning task.

“They used to call me Bhangi (part of the lowest of Indian castes) and treat us badly,” says Chaumar, now 33.

She was one of the country’s estimated 700000 so-called human scavengers on the lowest rung of the social hierarchy, who for centuries have had the wretched task of cleaning toilets and collecting human excrement.

Many Indians today still treat the waste collectors as “untouchables” and don’t let them approach their villages, schools or temples or come into contact with their food and drinking water.

“If I was thirsty, they would give me water but would avoid touching me,” says Chaumar.

Five years ago, her scavenging days ended when she joined the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, a non-profit group working to improve sanitation in India and the conditions for this marginalised segment of society.

With 2008 having been declared the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations, the UN is honouring people like Chaumar — and groups such as Sulabh — to draw attention to the plight of her caste and to explore ways of improving sanitation in thousands of communities around the developing world.

Sulabh set up a project called Nai Disha (new direction) in Chaumar’s home town . It went to the rescue of women scavengers by offering them vocational training and teaching them to operate bank accounts.

For Chaumar, life took a dramatic turn for the better after she signed up for vocational training.

“Now I make pickles, snacks, do embroidery, beauty care, make candles and even take adult education classes.”

As a scavenger, she earned 300 rupees (7) a month. Now Sulabh pays her 2000 rupees a month for her services, enough, she says, to send her three children to school. She earns extra cash by using her skills at home.

“People who used to hate being around me now come to my house and ask me to make pickles or embroider their saris.”

By 2006, Sulabh had rescued some 60000 scavengers, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Sulabh is also pioneering sustainable sanitation technologies.

Bindeshwar Pathak, who founded the organisation in 1970, developed the well-known Sulabh Sauchalya, an affordable and eco- friendly two-pit toilet.

Pathak says his invention helps slow global warming, saves water and converts human waste into natural fertiliser.

Sulabh is raising awareness of and speeding up progress towards achieving one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals — to cut by half the number of people lacking access to basic sanitation by 2015. — Sapa-AFP

Source: http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/News/Article.aspx?id=875193