Ручное удаление отходов в Индии: история и современное состояние

Term used mainly in India
an issue in IndiaManual scavenging is a term used mainly in India for "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". 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. 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.

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 (Chuhra) 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. 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. They also brought Dalits working as agricultural labourers in the rural areas for the job in urban areas. The 2011 Census of India found 794,000 cases of manual scavenging across India. The state of Maharashtra, with 63,713, tops the list with the largest number of households working as manual scavengers, followed by the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura and Karnataka. Manual scavenging still survives in parts of India without proper sewage systems or safe fecal sludge management practices. It is thought to be prevalent in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. An estimate in 2018 put the number of "sanitation workers" in India at 5 million, and 50% of them being women. However, not all sanitation workers are manual scavengers. Another estimate from 2018 put the figure at one million manual scavengers, stating that the number is "unknown and declining" and that 90% of them are women. The biggest violator of this law in India is the Indian Railways where many train carriages have toilets dropping the excreta from trains on the tracks and who employ scavengers to clean the tracks manually. Unlike infrastructure projects like metros, the issue receives little or no priority from the Government and hence the deadline to comply with the 1993 Act has been continuously postponed.

In India, women who practice manual scavenging face pressure from their respective communities if they miss a day since toilets are cleaned every day. Many women have no choice but to turn up to clean the toilets. The practical requirement that they do not miss a day prevents them from pursuing alternate occupations like agricultural labor. And in the event that they are able to find the means and support to stop manual scavenging, women still face extreme pressure from the community.

In the late 1950s, freedom fighter G. S. Lakshman Iyer banned manual scavenging when he was the chairman of Gobichettipalayam Municipality, which became the first local body to ban it officially. Sanitation is a State subject as per entry 6 of the Constitution. Under this, in February 2013 Delhi announced that they were banning manual scavenging, making them the first state in India to do so. District magistrates are responsible for ensuring that there are no manual scavengers working in their district. Within three years of the ruling municipalities, railways and cantonments were required to make sufficient sanitary latrines available. But by using Article 252 of the constitution which empowers Parliament to legislate for two or more States by consent and adoption of such legislation by any other State, the Government of India has enacted various laws. The continuance of such discriminatory practice is violation of ILO's Convention 111 (Discrimination in Employment and Occupation). The United Nations human rights chief welcomed in 2013 the movement in India to eradicate manual scavenging. In 2007 the Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers was passed to help in transition to other occupations.

After six states passed resolutions requesting the Central Government to frame a law, "The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993", drafted by the Ministry of Urban Development under the Narasimha Rao government, was passed by Parliament in 1993. The act punishes the employment of scavengers or the construction of dry (non flush) latrines with imprisonment for up to one year and/or a fine of Rs 2,000. No convictions were obtained under the law during the 20 years it was in force.

Government has passed the new legislation in September 2013 and issued Government notification for the same. In December, 2013 Government also formulated Rules 2013 called as "The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Rules 2013" or "M. S. Rules 2013". The hearing on 27 March 2014 was held on manual scavenging of writ petition number 583 of 2003, and Supreme Court has issued final orders and case is disposed of with various directions to the Government. The broad objectives of the act are to eliminate unsanitary latrines, prohibit the employment of manual scavengers and the hazardous manual cleaning of sewer and septic tanks, and to maintain a survey of manual scavengers and their rehabilitation.

The Bill calls for a complete mechanization of cleaning sewers and septic tanks.

In India in the 1970s, Bindeshwar Pathak introduced his "Sulabh" concept for building and managing public toilets in India, which has introduced hygienic and well managed public toilet systems. Activist Bezwada Wilson founded a group in 1994, Safai Karmachari Andolan, to campaign for the demolition of then newly illegal 'dry latrines' (pit latrines) and the abolition of manual scavenging. Despite the efforts of Wilson and other activists, the practice persists two decades later. In July 2008 "Mission Sanitation" was a fashion show held by the United Nations as part of its International Year of Sanitation. On the runway were 36 previous workers, called scavengers, and top models to help bring awareness of the issue of manual scavenging. The Movement for Scavenger Community (MSC) is an NGO founded in 2009 by Vimal Kumar with young people, social activists, and like minded people from the scavenger community. MSC is committed to working towards the social and economic empowerment of the scavenger community through the medium of education. The "Campaign for Dignity" (Garima Abhiyan) in Madhya Pradesh in India has assisted more than 20,000 women to stop doing manual scavenging as an occupation. Pragya Akhilesh is an investigative journalist. Her writings on this area in platforms like the Indian Express, The Wire, Outlook, Deccan Herald and Hindustan Times has transformed the dialogue on sanitation workers and has transformed the course of truthful journalism in India despite violent attacks by the Hindu right wing government in India. She is one of the biggest sanitation crusaders rightfully called as the 'sanitation woman of India' like Rajendra Singh is called the 'Water man of India.' She has been wrongly labelled as the ‘toilet woman of Delhi’ like Bhasha Singh is called 'a manual scavenging journalist' by the government for her prolific contribution highlighting SBM's irregularities focusing on merely infrastructure building rather than protecting the rights of thousands of sanitation workers in India. Since 2010 she has highlighted the government's failure to recognise the labour movement of sanitation workers and the failure to eradicate and rehabilitate manual scavengers in India.

Manual emptying of toilets also took place in Europe. Historically the excreta was known as night soil and in Tudor England the workers were called gong farmers. In Pakistan municipalities still rely on Christian sweepers. In the city of Karachi, sweepers keep the sewer system flowing, using their bare hands to unclog crumbling drainpipes of feces, plastic bags and hazardous hospital refuse, part of the 1,750 million litres of waste the city's 20 million residents produce daily. Christians make up a small percentage of Pakistan's population, and they fill majority of the sweeper jobs. When Karachi's municipality tried to recruit Muslims to unclog gutters, they refused to get down into the sewers, instead sweeping the streets. The job was left to Christians and lower caste Hindus. Waste storage practices in homes in Sierra Leone are poor, adding to collection difficulties. Unsorted waste is often stored in old leaky buckets, and used plastic bags instead of a bin lined with plastic bags. Like most African countries, waste collection is a problem. Garbage collected by collection workers, who are not provided with personal protective equipment like gloves, from communal skips is moved straight for the city's two disposal sites. Scavengers try to earn a living from scouring through rotting rubbish, plastic bags and raw sewage for discarded things they can sell.