Swachh Bharat campaign: Women manual scavengers in Gujarat put to work to "clean up" open defecation

By Our Representative
The attached photographs, forwarded by activist of the Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust Natubhai Parmar to Counterview, show that manual scavenging in Wadhwan municipality of Surendranagar district, Gujarat, continues, despite the authorities’ promise last month that the despicable practice would end. The photographs were taken on October 2, 2014, Gandhi Jayanti Day, during Swachh Bharat, the all-India campaign launched Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Parmar said, the women were asked to “manually clean up human excreta” during the campaign. Last month, they protested and went on hunger strike against manual scavenging, and a compromise was struck following intervention by by the district collector, Surendranagar.

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