Manuski training and resource centre

Case Study: Manual Scavenging

Mr. Nagin Ranchod Solanki and Mr. Harish Magan Solanki were manual scavengers employed by the Vadodara Municipal Corporation in India's Gujarat State. One evening they were set to work inside a human waste sewer to repair a damaged valve. Two hours later they were found dead. An autopsy conducted on the bodies revealed that Nagin and Harish had died from suffocation after inhaling toxic gasses in the sewer.

Imagine being born into a family where you were forced to clean out sewers by hand for a living. Imagine the dirt, imagine the smell, imagine the shame. Imagine your surname reveals that you are a manual scavenger; there is no way to hide the degrading humiliation. Imagine other people refusing to speak to you, refusing to touch you, imagine they refuse to look at you. In India an estimated two hundred million people or four times the population of England are born into this appalling position.

These people, the Dalit caste (formally Untouchables), are restricted by birth from entering certain mainstream jobs. Instead, they are forced to eke out a life for themselves in dangerous, dirty and poorly paid jobs, such as manual scavenging. Karuna is working to end manual scavenging.

The Manuski social project works with the Dalit communities to offer manual scavengers and their families an alternative way of life. Manuski have created a network of activists from Dalit communities who have been trained to run different social projects all over India. They run kindergartens, children’s educational hostels, specialist skills workshops and microfinance initiatives.

The project also works in national and international arenas, addressing conferences, holding lectures and raising the profile of the plight of manual scavengers. The project has created an alliance of organisations which can lobby the government more effectively.

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