| Date 30-Nov-2018 to 30-Nov-2018 |
Location PRIA, New Delhi |
Format Sub National |
The seminar, “Hiding Injustices for Centures: Lessons from India’s Public Policies on Sanitation Workers” was organised at the PRIA Head Office in Delhi on November 30, 2018 as part of the ongoing “Engaged Citizen, Responsive City” project in collaboration with the European Union. The main aim of the conference was to present insights into the everyday struggles of sanitation workers all over India, with a specific focus on the difficulties faced by women sanitation workers in India. The seminar also marked the release of the film, “Littered Dignity”, which follows the complicated lives of women sanitation workers in Ajmer, Jhansi and Muzzafarpur as they navigate their way through the impositions of gender, caste and labour. The film is one of the many knowledge resources generated from the study to bring to the fore the need for inclusive urban sanitation policies, programs and planning.
The seminar brought together practitioners, academicians, students and policy analysts who engaged in a vibrant discussion to find common ground on how laws, schemes and policies regarding sanitation work and workers can be informed and enhanced through the lens of gender. These multiple perspectives helped articulate scalable solutions which were presented by the audience and the panel, to address the challenges women sanitation workers face every day and to advocate for inclusive sanitation services.
Presentations by Nilanjana Bhattacharya and Shashi Shikha (of PRIA), Dr. Indira Khurana (formerly of Safai Karmachaari Andolan) and Dr. Ravikant Joshi (Team Leader, National Urban Livelihood Mission), and thoughtful comments from the floor, put forward a set of recommendations for policy advocacy.
The presentation by Ms. Nilanjana Bhattacharjee and Mrs. Shashi Shikha elaborated on the participatory research with 206 women sanitation workers conducted by PRIA, giving us an insight into the long, grim schedule that women sanitation workers have to follow every day. This is largely due to the double burden imposed upon women, that of being a mother/wife and being a full-time employee, imposed by patriarchy and caste socialisation. Many women sanitation workers also do not enjoy the benefits accorded to their male counterparts (such as promotion) and have to bear the sense of uncertainty and unregulated working conditions that comes with being a contractual sanitation worker. This includes not having paid leave, maternity leave, medical insurance, and no safety equipment. Furthermore, all of the workers recounted lack of provisions of changing rooms and toilets, their discomfort deeply felt on the days the women workers are menstruating and on hot summer days. The research found some women were forced to work till the day before they were due to deliver and made to return to work barely a week after giving birth.
Nilanjana and Shashi gave some practical recommendations to help ameliorate the working conditions of women sanitation workers and to support them in voicing their demands:
Dr. Indira Khurana spoke about the need for the middle class “to get its act together and become more sensitive”, since sanitation workers are responsible for cleaning up the mess that we create. In her opinion, most popular stances against sanitation workers compounds the popular perception that ‘somebody needs to do the job’ which is accompanied by the sense of apathy of the middle class towards the condition of these workers. She spoke eloquently about the lack of accountability shown by the central government in dealing with the eradication of manual scavenging. Despite the high number of sewage and septic tank deaths (almost 1 every 5 days), the mechanism put in place to receive compensation was tedious and complicated. Sanitation work is inextricably linked to caste, as PRIA’s research has also shown. Even if a sanitation worker attempts to go beyond their “assigned vocation”, there exists very little recourse to do so. Banks are reluctant to issue loans to them, especially women sanitation workers, for fear of non-payment.
Additionally, the sense of apathy is intensified by the government’s stance on the issue. State governments generally ask organisations who are accumulating such data to censor the numbers because of the way it reflects badly on the state. This is why; there exist no correct figures in understanding the number of sanitation workers in the country. 94% of manual scavengers are claimed to be “liberated” but there was no mention of the lakhs who are undocumented.
Dr. Ravikant Joshi, part of the National Urban Livelihood Mission, offered a slightly different perspective on the issues brought up by ‘Littered Dignity’ as well as the earlier presentations. He spoke about the urgent need to vocationalise the sanitation sector by, firstly, bringing in a framework which allows sanitation work to be treated as “skilled” and, secondly, establishing, supporting and mainstreaming sanitation related enterprises. In his opinion, most of the recommendations and policy solutions for skilling that are currently being put forward are linear and straightforward and do not address the complexity of the reality of the sanitation landscape in urban India. This nuance is important because of the two types of vulnerability imposed by manual scavenging: social vulnerability and occupational vulnerability. It is convenient to say that manual scavenging must be eradicated and that mechanised sanitation work is the way forward, but then what will happen to the lakhs of people who have found employment by being sanitation workers? Current policies lack “the human element”, that is, they do not take into account the problems encountered by the stakeholders themselves after the solution has been implemented.
This is further complicated by the numerous paradoxes that surround this profession. For example, enabling the creation of sanitation-related micro-enterprises will certainly aid the cause of eradicating manual scavenging but can we assume that the person in charge of the enterprise will not employ anybody from their own community?
Mr. Joshi’s recommendations focused on social mobilization and institution building, reiterating his framework that navigating the paradoxes that surround sanitation workers requires complex, nuanced solutions.
Over 30 lakh women in India have been federated into self-help groups (SHGs) but, less than 10% of these women are sanitation workers. Civil society organisations all over India are doing great work by helping organize women in impoverished areas but a large number of these SHGs (Self Help Groups) are outside the ambit of NULM and are therefore not getting the necessary support.
The seminar concluded with a Q&A session which was very intellectually stimulating and was instrumental in making known several other nuances to what is often seen as a black-and-white problem. One of the many interesting comments and questions was posed by Trupti from the Center for Policy and Research. She asked whether there were any shifts in the lived experiences of these workers which were brought about by the implementation of numerous acts? The panel answered that while the lived experiences of these workers has definitely changed over the years, the change has not been brought about by the act as opposed to the general changes to the Indian economy as a whole. There are definitely more opportunities available to children of sanitation workers and the changes in the general system of employment have also improved. Other changes such as support provided by the family to help ease the stress of work, menstruating women informing their family members about their period so that they can help them, are all positive changes. Dr. Joshi, however, reiterated that for legislation such as the Manual Scavenging Act (2013) to truly have an effect on the lived experiences of the sanitation worker, we need to include every stakeholder who is part of the sanitation ecosystem to find workable solutions and work collectively to address the magnitude of the task at hand.