Rights group Human Rights Watch has called on the Indian government to end “manual scavenging” – the practice of cleaning human waste by low-caste communities – in a new report. The practice is banned by law in India, but it is rampant and activists say nearly 10 million are involved in this demeaning work which opens them to prejudice and abuse. The report calls on the government “to ensure that local officials enforce the laws prohibiting this discriminatory practice”.

Millions of people from low-caste communities remove human excrement from toilets which do not have the modern flush system and carry it away in cane baskets for disposal. Women from these castes – like Gangashree of Kasela village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh – usually clean dry toilets in homes, while men do the more physically demanding cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. Gangashree carries the faeces in her basket to the outskirts of the village for disposal.

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