The business of human waste disposal is a respectable and well-paid profession when conducted by a certified plumber or civil engineer. It was not always thus. Until the automatic installation of flushing toilets in modern European homes, cesspits containing the noisome contents of the ‘necessary room’ were emptied by a hidden class of workers known as ‘nightmen’ or ‘rakers’. In some parts of the world, such people still exist. The bucket-emptier who passes by under cover of dark in parts of Ghana, or the vyura (Swahili for ‘frogman’) who empties latrine pits in Dar es Salaam with nothing more than a spade to help him, continue to ply their humiliating trade – often without confessing to it. Gradually, the job of manual shit-shoveller is dying out or being technologically replaced. But far too slowly on the Indian sub-continent. There, a transformation of social attitudes, toilet habits and facilities, along with real political commitment, is still sorely needed. Mari Marcel Thekaekara reports.
In India, large numbers of those working in human waste disposal do what is euphemistically known as ‘manual scavenging’. We are not talking about Western-style lavatories here. The women – they are mostly women – who clean shit do so in horrific conditions.
