Haripackiya. S, The Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University SOEL
ABSTRACT
India has formally recognized the implicit right to a clean, healthy, and safe environment under Article 21 of the Constitution, ensuring the right to life for all citizens. However, the onus of maintaining sanitation and facing health risks often falls on the largely invisible and underappreciated sanitation workers. These individuals, integral to the sanitation chain, ensure our contact with human waste concludes in the toilet. In India, the challenges for sanitation workers go beyond working conditions, encompassing issues of caste discrimination, social ostracization, and gender disparities. The entrenched caste system, particularly affecting the Dalit community, dictates that they undertake hazardous, stigmatizing, and poorly compensated sanitation tasks. This confines their identities to their work and subjects them to inherited stigma and exploitation normalized by societal norms. This paper highlights the complex issues faced by sanitation workers, considering varied employment arrangements and societal norms rooted in the caste system. It examines the roles of trade unions, commissions, and the judiciary in ameliorating these conditions. The overarching aim is to propose a set of recommendations for improving the overall situation of sanitation workers.
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