Manual scavenging

Manual scavenging is a term used mainly to refer to "manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or sewer or in a septic tank or a pit". Manual scavengers usually use hand tools such as buckets, brooms and shovels. The workers have to move the excreta, using brooms and tin plates, into baskets, which they carry to disposal locations sometimes several kilometers away. The practice of employing human labour for cleaning of sewers and septic tanks is also prevalent in Bangladesh and Pakistan. These sanitation workers, called "manual scavengers", rarely have any personal protective equipment. The work is regarded as a dehumanizing practice.
The occupation of sanitation work is intrinsically linked with caste in India. All kinds of cleaning are considered lowly and are assigned to people from the lowest rung of the social hierarchy. In the caste-based society, it is mainly the Dalits who work as sanitation workers - as manual scavengers, cleaners of drains, as garbage collectors and sweepers of roads. It was estimated in 2019 that between 40 and 60 percent of the six million households of Dalit sub-castes are engaged in sanitation work. The most common Dalit caste performing sanitation work is the Valmiki caste.
The construction of dry toilets and employment of manual scavengers to clean such dry toilets was prohibited in India in 1993. The law was extended and clarified to include ban on use of human labour for direct cleaning of sewers, ditches, pits and septic tanks in 2013. However, despite the laws, manual scavenging was reported in many states including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan in 2014. In 2021, the NHRC observed that eradication of manual scavenging as claimed by state and local governments is far from over. Government data shows that in the period 1993–2021, 971 people died due to cleaning of sewers and septic tanks.
The term "manual scavenging" differs from the stand-alone term "scavenging", which is one of the oldest economic activities and refers to the act of sorting though and picking from discarded waste. Sometimes called waste pickers or ragpickers, scavengers usually collect from the streets, dumpsites, or landfills. They collect reusable and recyclable material to sell, reintegrating it into the economy's production process. The practice exists in cities and towns across the Global South.

Definition

Manual scavenging refers to the unsafe and manual removal of raw human excreta from buckets or other containers that are used as toilets or from the pits of simple pit latrines. The safe and controlled emptying of pit latrines, on the other hand, is one component of fecal sludge management.
The official definition of a manual scavenger in Indian law from 1993 is as follows:

"manual scavenger" means a person engaged in or employed for manually carrying human excreta and the expression "manual scavenging" shall be construed accordingly

In 2013, the definition of manual scavenger was expanded to include persons employed in cleaning of septic tanks, open drains and railway tracks. It reads:

"Manual scavenger" means a person engaged or employed, at the commencement of this Act or at any time thereafter, by an individual or a local authority or an agency or a contractor, for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or pit into which the human excreta from the insanitary latrines is disposed of, or railway track or in such other spaces or premises, as the Central Government or a State Government may notify, before the excreta fully decomposes in such manner as may be prescribed, and the expression “manual scavenging” shall be construed accordingly.

The definition ignores many other sanitation workers like fecal sludge handlers, community and public toilet cleaners, workers cleaning storm water drains, waste segregators, etc. Such workers are not required to handle excreta directly, but get in contact due to poor working conditions, lack of segregation, and the interconnectedness of excreta management with solid waste management and storm water management, states notable sanitation crusader and investigative journalist Pragya Akhilesh. The 2013 Act adds that a person engaged or employed to clean excreta with the help of equipment and using the protective gear as notified by the Union government shall not be deemed to be a manual scavenger. Bhasha Singh argues that this clause gives the government an escape clause as all forms of manual scavenging can be kept outside the purview of the law by arguing that the individual is using protective gear.
In 2021, the National Human Rights Commission of India advocated for the term to include other types of hazardous cleaning.
There is a very clear gender division of various types of work that is called manual scavenging in India. The cleaning of dry toilets and carrying of waste to points of disposal is generally done by women, while men are involved in the cleaning of septic tanks and sewers. There is an economic reason for this distribution - the municipality employs workers to clean sewers and septic tanks and hence the salary is better. Cleaning private toilets, on the other hand, pays little and is therefore handed over to the women. The women involved are referred to differently - 'dabbu-wali' in Bengal, 'balti-wali' in Kanpur, 'tina-wali in Bihar, tokri-wali in Punjab and Haryana, 'thottikar' in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, 'paaki' or 'peeti' in Odisha, 'vaatal' in Kashmir. These names directly refer to the tools used by the women to carry waste or dustbin or excreta.
Manual scavenging is done with basic tools like thin boards and either buckets or baskets lined with sacking and carried on the head. Due to the hazardous nature of the job, many of the workers have related health problems. Scavengers risk suffering from respiratory disorders, typhoid, and cholera. Scavengers may also contract skin and blood infections, eye and respiratory infections due to exposure to pollutants, skeletal disorder caused by the lifting of heavy storage containers, and burns due to coming into contact with hazardous chemicals combined with waste. The data obtained by Safai Karmachari Andolan for 2017-2018 found the average age of deceased sewer workers to be around they do not reach the age of retirement and the family often loses their breadwinner early.
Not all forms of dry toilets involve "manual scavenging" to empty them, but only those that require unsafe handling of raw excreta. If on the other hand the excreta is already treated or pre-treated in the dry toilet itself, as is the case for composting toilets, and urine-diverting dry toilets for example, then emptying these types of toilets is not classified as "manual scavenging". Container-based sanitation is another system that does not require manual scavenging to function even though it does involve the emptying of excreta from containers.
Also, emptying the pits of twin-pit toilets is not classified as manual scavenging in India, as if used and emptied appropriately, the excreta is already treated.
The International Labour Organization describes three forms of manual scavenging in India:

Removal of human excrement from public streets and "dry latrines"
Cleaning septic tanks
Cleaning gutters and sewers

Manual cleaning of railway lines of excreta dropped from toilets of trains is another form of manual scavenging in India.
The Hindi phrase safai karamchari defines not only "manual scavengers" but also other sanitation workers.

History

The practice of manual scavenging in India dates back to ancient times. According to the contents of sacred scriptures and other literature, scavenging by some specific castes of India has existed since the beginning of civilization. One of the fifteen duties of slaves enumerated in Naradiya Samhita was of manual scavenging. This continues during the Buddhist and Maurya period also.
Scholars have suggested that the Mughal women with purdah required enclosed toilets that needed to be scavenged. It is pointed out that the Bhangis share some of the clan names with Rajputs, and propose that the Bhangis are descendants of those captured in wars. There are many legends about the origin of Bhangis, who have traditionally served as manual scavengers. One of them, associated with Lal Begi Bhangis, describes the origin of Bhangis from Mehtar.
Manual scavenging is historically linked to the caste system in India. Not only cleaning of toilets, but all types of cleaning jobs are considered lowly in India. The elites assigned the most lowly and polluting jobs for members of the Dalit community. The caste-based assignment of cleaning jobs can be traced back to the revival of the Brahmanical order during the Gupta period, considered the golden era in the history of the Indian sub-continent. The workers usually belonged to the Balmiki or Hela subcastes; considered at the bottom of the hierarchy within the Dalit community itself.
Before the passage of the 1993 Act that prohibit employment for manual scavengers, local governments employed 'scavengers' to clean dry latrines in private houses and community or public facilities. These jobs were institutionalised by the British. In London, cesspits containing human waste were called 'gongs' or 'jakes' and men employed to clean them 'Gongfermours' or 'Gongfarmers'. They emptied such pits only in the night and dumped it outside the city. They had designated areas to live and were allowed to use only certain roads and by lanes to carry the waste. The British organized systems for removing the excreta and employed Bhangis as manual scavengers. They also brought Dalits working as agricultural labourers in the rural areas for the job in urban areas. This formal employment of Bhangis and Chamars for waste management by the British reinforced the caste based assignment. Even today, sanitation department jobs are almost unofficially 100% reserved for people from the Scheduled caste groups.