Employers of manual scavengers to face prison
The Indian government is ready to introduce new legislation to end manual scavenging. The proposed bill includes tough penalties for those who continue to employ people as scavengers.
The Indian government is ready to introduce new legislation to end manual scavenging. The proposed bill includes tough penalties for those who continue to employ people as scavengers.
In a recent episode of his popular talk show, Satyamev Jayate, the actor Aamir Khan focused on caste discrimination and declared it a ‘mental illness’.
Following a targeted campaign by the National Campaign for Dignity and Eradication of Manual Scavenging and other activists, Indian Parliamentarians are now taking the issue of manual scavenging up in Parliament.
A Motion in the Dutch Parliament on full supply chain transparency in the garment industry in India has been adopted in the wake of the report ‘Maid in India’ by SOMO and the India Committee of the Netherlands
These past months have seen a flurry of activity to support the struggle to end the abhorrent practice of Dalits being employed to remove human waste from dry latrines manually which persists despite having been officially abolished by law in India since 1993. In India, the ILO has organised a conference to address this problem, a National Public Hearing has been held by the National Campaign for Dignity and Eradication of Manual Scavenging, reports have been released and media have reported widely about the persistence of the practice.
Follow-up report highlights improvements but warns that root problems remain and bonded labour continues to exist in the cotton indsutry.
The UN and national level Dalit bodies are urging the Government to end the bonded labour system in Nepal, known as the Haliya system, and implement rehabilitation schemes for freed Haliyas. Haliyas in Nepal are predominantly Dalits, excluded from other work due to rampant caste discrimination.
The UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery noted with concern that children from marginalised groups, including tribal and lower caste communities, are "doubly vulnerable to abuses" in the mining sector.
ILO: For millions of people, contemporary India has become a land of opportunities, and the largest democracy in the world has experienced a remarkable economic growth during the last decade. Yet, as India accelerates its pace towards development, many are left behind due to long standing caste-based discrimination in employment. ILO Online reports from Rajasthan, India.
Multinational clothing brands are sourcing from cotton spinning mills in Tamil Nadu that exploit teenage girls, subjecting them to what the ILO terms the ‘worst forms of child labour’.