New Delhi: Due to poverty in India, many rural areas still do not have toilet facilities and men and women turn to open defecation.
Not only this, in the cities also the work of cleaning the drains and septic tanks used for defecation is done by hand even today which is disgusting to the viewer.
According to Indian media, this process is still going on in various parts of the country despite the legal ban on hand-washing of human waste. Hundreds of lives have been lost so far in this work. This work is done by the “Dalit” Hindus of the lower caste.
The Indian government claimed last month that there had been no deaths in the country due to hand-washing of human waste, but the statement drew strong criticism from social workers.
Government officials later admitted that 941 cleaners were killed across the country while cleaning drains and aseptic tanks.
The leader of the organization, which is working to end the practice of handwashing, says 472 cleaners have died in the last four years alone, while 26 people have lost their lives so far this year due to handwashing. Have washed their hands of
India enacted a law in 2013 banning manual cleaning of waste. However, the law has not yet been implemented in practice and manual waste disposal is still underway in various parts of India.
According to a study conducted jointly by the World Bank, WHO, International Labor Organization (ILO) and WaterAid, these cleaners receive meager wages.
According to a report by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, those who refuse to carry out filthy work also face threats and abuse from the upper castes.
It should be noted that those who clean their waste with their hands are at risk of suffocation due to toxic gases. They often suffer from cholera, jaundice, hepatitis, meningitis, skin diseases and heart diseases.