Women at Work in Manual Scavenging: A Study from Legal Perspective

  • J Maria Joseph Louis Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of Applied Research, The Gandhigram Rural Institute-Deemed University, Gadhigram, Tamil Nadu, India
  • M Hilaria Soundari Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Research, The Gandhigram Rural Institute-Deemed University, Gadhigram, Tamil Nadu, India
Keywords: Manual scavenging, Abolition, Women, Government efforts, Legal measure

Abstract

Manual scavenging, a despised vocation of manually sweeping household dry latrines and carryinghuman excreta-still exists in many parts of India. This inhuman practice has traditionally been enforced ona specific group of people labelled as ‘manual scavengers’. Both men and women clean tanks, where as the dry latrines in the houses and public places are generally cleansed by women. Women are engaged inmanual scavenging in poor households on credit and these women are treated with contempt. These women and their families are forced to live their entire lives in misery and condemned to remain on the lowestrung of the caste system. Labours are very important assets of an economy. Therefore, welfare of labour isthe prime responsibility of government and Ministry of Labour welfare was started in 1837. But still India isfacing the problem of inhuman practice of manual scavenging in the era of globalization and technological advancement. This paper attempts to provide some facts behind the enactment of new Act,“The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013”, in the evaluationof the past act and schemes of the government and reasons for its failure to abolish and rehabilitate them anual scavengers to solve their problems to achieve the objective of labour welfare in real sense.The article proposes the need of a social transformation through generation of awareness and strict implementation of law and policy in order to meet the constraints of the legal and moral regime in which human dignity and respect may be restored for scavenging women.

Published
2018-01-20
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