Images of Foul Play - India (2010)

Project Background

Photography by members of the Dalit community in India, to produce images for the DSN ‘Foul Play’ campaign against Manual Scavenging.
Project Manager: Matt Daw
Facilitator: Rashmi Munikempanna
Local Coordinator: Barsha Chakraborty
With generous support from: Commonwealth Foundation, Eva Reckitt Trust Fund, AB charitable Trust, Westcroft Trust

In February 2010, in partnership with Delhi-based campaigning organisation Safai Karamchari, PhotoVoice ran a series of workshops with 10 representatives from Dalit communities across North India.

The community representatives were trained in digital photography, exploring ways they can use photography to highlight the social issues at the root of the continuing practice of Manual Scavenging. The images produced will feed into the ‘Foul Play’ campaign being run by the Dalit Solidarity Network with the aim of eradicating Manual Scavenging.

Project photo gallery

Further project info

Caste Discrimination
Caste Discrimination is one of the worst and most widespread human rights abuses existing today. It is India’s ‘Hidden Apartheid’ that even the Indian PM Manmohan Singh has described as ‘a blot on humanity’. But still the practice of untouchability and caste discrimination persists. Millions of Dalits worldwide still face discrimination in all areas of their life, both public and private. Caste discrimination is a major cause of poverty and affects deeply the human rights and life chances of the so-called lower castes.
More than 270 million people worldwide continue to experience discrimination based on their caste and practices linked to untouchability. Communities severely affected are the Dalits (formerly ‘untouchables’) of South Asia, as well as an estimated 3 million Burakumin in Japan and ‘caste people’ in West Africa. The majority of Dalits in South Asia live in chronic poverty and are deprived of or excluded from adequate housing, health care, education, employment, sanitation, transport and from entering public spaces or places of worship. Dalit communities experience daily insecurity, uncertainty and violence, usually with no recourse to justice.

Manual Scavenging
It is estimated that around 1.3 million Dalits in India, mostly women, make their living through manual scavenging - a term used to describe the job of removing human excrement from dry toilets and sewers using basic tools such as thin boards, buckets and baskets, lined with sacking, carried on the head. Manual scavengers earn as little as 7p per day. Though this vile and inhumane practice was abolished by law in India in 1993 the practice is deeply entrenched in South Asian societies. Numerous pieces of legislation exist to protect and promote the rights of Dalits and workers. However these Acts are largely ignored, even by local authorities who employ thousands of Dalits as manual scavengers.
Manual scavenging is one of the most extreme forms of caste discrimination and its complicity in the continuaton of this practice is an international human rights scandal.

The Campaign: Foul Play!
Dalits face violence and intimidation when protesting or speaking out against the lack of policy implementation and the violation of their rights. Despite this threat an organisation has been set up by manual scavengers in India called Safai Karmachari Andolan ‘The Liberation Movement of those employed as scavengers’. They have launched an international campaign to demand an end to this practice by the time of the Commonwealth Games, in Delhi October 2010.
The Commonwealth Games will take place in Delhi in 2010 under the banner of ‘Humanity, Equality, Destiny’. These are some of the values denied to India’s Dalits, including 1.3 Manual Scavengers. Dalit Solidarity network is calling for an end to the dangerous, degrading and caste-based occupation of Manual Scavenging before these games take place:

Decent Work is a Human Right: Manual Scavenging is one of the most extreme forms of caste discrimination and the states complicity in its continued practice is an unacceptable human rights scandal. The Indian Government and state authorities must fulfil their own target to eliminate scavenging by 2009/10 and to fully rehabilitate manual scavengers. This should include access to education, healthcare and alternative livelihoods.

Caste Discrimination must be eliminated: Millions of Dalits still suffer caste discrimination in every aspect of their daily lives. This continued discrimination is the greatest threat to achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals in India.
This is not our ‘Destiny’! For millions of Dalits Destiny means a life of discrimination, exploitation and inescapable poverty in occupations such as manual scavenging. The UK Government must step up efforts to eradicate the practice of scavenging and support rehabilitation policies and programmes for alternative livelihood and sustenance.
Demands:

Caste discrimination must be eliminated. Unless this is achieved Dalits will continue to experience discrimination and degradation in their employment and their wider lives.
The UK government should express its concern on this issue and the lack of progress on legislation intended to eradicate this practice.
The UK Government’s Department for Internaional Development should use its programmes and funding in India to actively support the implementation of eradication and rehabilitation programmes to end this human rights violation.
The Indian Government should immediately release the Rs800 crores set aside for the liberation, rehabilitation and re-education of Manual Scavengers and continue funding until rehabilitation is complete.
The Indian Government should undertake an extensive evaluation into how money already released for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers has been spent.
The Indian Government should ensure all Districts construct safe forms of sanitation to replace dry latrines.
Free health and Sanitation Programmes should be provided to protect and care for former Manual Scavengers whose health has been adversely affected by their occupation.
International institutions, governments, humanitarian organisations, labour organisations and companies must acknowledge manual scavenging and the massive human rights abuse which it represents. Stepping up efforts to eradicate its practice should go hand in hand with a commitment to support rehabilitation and training programmes for alternative livelihood and sustenance providing a living wage for decent work.
In the lead up to the Commonwealth Games 2010 affirmative action programmes for Dalits should be introduced to ensure that employment created by the games is equally accessible to Dalits.
Before these games take place under the banner of ‘Equality, Humanity, Destiny’ the Commonwealth Games Federation should recognise in its constitution caste as a cause of discrimination, and a barrier to the realisation of these principles for Dalits. The federation should take all possible steps to challenge caste discrimination within the ‘Games’ and beyond.
All of these measures should be time bound to ensure action and accountability.
Decent Work is a Human Right: Put an end to Manual Scavenging.