Welcome to The Inclusivity Project :: Mission to ensure enrichment of the Knowledge and Information
Welcome to The Inclusivity Project :: Mission to ensure enrichment of the Knowledge and Information
There is perhaps no right more basic and fundamental than the right to Water and Sanitation,the
very foundations of life itself.
Sustainable Development Goal 6 emphasizes how climate change
is degrading water sources worldwide and threatening the health and well-being of billions of
people.
However, there has yet to be sufficient attention given to one of the most glaring
transgressions of the rights to Water and Sanitation that occurs throughout the globe; that is, the
active exclusion of people from Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD)
from clean water sources and the oppressive labor systems that result in them working in highly
unsanitary conditions.
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Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (CDWD)
Discrimination based on work and descent has historically been inextricably linked to issues of unacceptable sanitary conditions. Historically, CDWD such as Dalits in South Asia, the Burakumin in Japan, the Roma in Europe, the Quilombo in Brazil, the Al-Akhdam in Yemen, and a wide variety of groups in Africa such as the Osu in Nigeria and the Haratin in Mauritania have been forced through slavery, bonded labor or similar systems of hierarchical oppression into work that is unsanitary and damaging to an individual’s health. It is because of this work that these communities have been labeled as “Polluted” or “Untouchable,” and it is because they have been labelled as such that they have been segregated from the community at large and denied access to basic resources such as sanitation and water. Thus, we see that the issue of sanitation in the case of CDWD is a twofold issue of discrimination; the extreme discrimination they face forces them into unsanitary conditions, and the unsanitary conditions they live in result in only further discrimination and segregations.
There is perhaps no clearer example of this than that of manual scavengers in India; these are
workers, almost always from Dalit castes, who clean human excrement from sewage systems by
hand, exposing them to innumerable health hazards.
1. Despite the practice being outlawed, over
66,000 people are still employed as manual scavengers today, but because of the caste
discrimination and stigma that they face they have been unable to find more adequate
employment.
2. The case of manual scavengers led Leo Heller, then the UN special rapporteur on
water and sanitation, to note in 2018 that addressing the crisis of public sanitation in India is not
just a matter of installing more facilities. If this is done without also addressing the human rights
crisis of discrimination against Dalits, then it is likely that public health programs will simply
lead to Dalits being denied access to these facilities, or even being forced to clean them.
3. Public
health programs must therefore be united with programs to enforce anti-discrimination laws and
ensure that all members of society are given equal access to such programs.
The Roma of Europe are also a clear example of how discrimination based on work and descent
is entangled with issues of inadequate sanitation. Facing extreme discrimination, the Roma are
often forcibly evicted by government officials to the outskirts of society, and are often forced to live in landfills, where the majority find work by scavenging through the refuse. Living and
working in these conditions thus results in the Roma being associated in the minds of the
dominant community with waste, making it even more challenging for them to find adequate
employment or housing elsewhere. And, predictably, living amongst waste – which often
includes toxic materials dumped by local factories – has resulted in severe illnesses and death
amongst the Roma community.