The Sanitation Workers Knowledge + Learning Hub is the best source for all current news, trends, articles and updates on sanitation workers rights around the world.
Sanitation workers face occupational health and safety challenges due to unsafe working conditions and exposure to waste. Numerous studies have highlighted the occupational hazards and accidents faced by sanitation workers, who are also frequently subject to discrimination and neglect within societies. However, there has been limited research quantifying the factors associated with occupational …
This collaborative effort between the Government of Maharashtra, RCUES of AIILSG Mumbai, and UNICEF India aimed to empower sanitation workers through a comprehensive capacity building program focused on occupational safety and dignity. The initiative successfully trained over 250 Master Trainers who then disseminated their knowledge to more than 2,000 sanitation workers across the state, …
This study compares pit-latrine emptying businesses in Kampala, Uganda, and Kigali, Rwanda, focusing on resources, methods, and tariffs. Empirical data from Forever Sanitation and Pit Vidura show challenges with portable vacuum pumps in hard-to-reach areas, highlighting the need for formal manual emptying for some customers where mechanical methods are not viable. Manual emptying has similar …
Sanitation workers play a vital role in maintaining cleanliness and safety within the sanitation chain, a crucial aspect of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. However, they often face poor working conditions, social and economic marginalization, and significant health risks, including the threat of infection and injury, sometimes leading to fatalities, compromising their dignity and …
Sanitation workers play a vital role in maintaining cleanliness and safety within the sanitation chain, a crucial aspect of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. However, they often face poor working conditions, social and economic marginalization, and significant health risks, including the threat of infection and injury, sometimes leading to fatalities, compromising their dignity and …
Sanitation workers play a vital role in maintaining cleanliness and safety within the sanitation chain, a crucial aspect of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. However, they often face poor working conditions, social and economic marginalization, and significant health risks, including the threat of infection and injury, sometimes leading to fatalities, compromising their dignity and …
Sanitation workers provide an essential public service to ensure cleanliness and safety along the sanitation chain. This is key to achieving the ambitious Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, although poor working conditions, social and economic marginalization, high risk of infection and injury even death, mean it is often at the cost of their dignity, health and life. Strengthening social …
Sanitation workers encounter significant challenges that jeopardize their dignity and health, crucial for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite their vital role, many governments in low- and middle-income countries neglect support for this workforce due to insufficient understanding of their needs and obstacles.
The paper explores challenges faced by sanitation workers in …
Sanitation workers provide an essential public service to ensure cleanliness and safety along the sanitation chain. This is key to achieving the ambitious Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, although poor working conditions, social and economic marginalization, high risk of infection and injury even death, mean it is often at the cost of their dignity, health and life. Strengthening social …
Workshop to connect key learnings from other sectors (for example, solid waste management, waste picking) to advocacy and research on sanitation work (human waste management) across the world.
Speakers
1. Sonia Dias (WIEGO's Global Waste Expert)
2. Christy Braham (WIEGO, Belgium)
3. Lakshmi Narayan (KKPKP Waste Pickers Union, India)
4. Nalini Shekar (Hasiru Dala, India)
5. Dr …
Polite notice: This session includes detail (through the documentary film and presentations) about real-life cases of sanitation worker deaths and injuries, which some viewers/attendees may find upsetting*
Workshop to connect key learnings from the labour and human rights sectors (on occupational health and safety, formalisation, collectivisation, worker entitlements and responding to labour …
Sanitation workers provide essential services often at cost of their health and dignity. Little research has been done and there is an urgent need for evidence for policy and programs. Participants in this workshop will hear from moderators on challenges and contribute to setting a global published research agenda by proposing research questions.
Chairs: Kate Medlicott & Abisola Osinuga …
Includes reflections on the Garima Scheme in Odisha, India from G. Mathivathanan (Principal Secretary to Govt Housing & Urban Development Department, Government of Odisha, India), Manvita Baradi (Director, Urban Management Centre) and Meghna Malhotra (Deputy Director, Urban Management Centre).
About Garima
The Garima scheme for Safety and Dignity of Core Sanitation Workers was launched in …
Thousands of lives of sanitation workers are endangered and lost in low and middle income countries (LMICs) while manually cleaning confined spaces like septic tanks and sewer lines. These deaths are avoidable if we take corrective measures. Join us to discuss leading practices that cities can observe to make work safer for sanitation workers!
Speakers
Prabal Bhardwaj, PMU- SBM, Ministry of …
This session examines some of the ways in which to enhance Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) of sanitation work, via technical innovations, as well as targeted laws, policies and regulations. The speakers highlight a number of worker-centred avenues to strengthen OHS, as well as key gaps where further participatory research and advocacy is urgently needed.
Speakers
1. Froggi VanRiper …
This session examines the multiple ways in which Covid-19 has affected sanitation workers at their workplace and in their personal lives. The speakers highlight how the pandemic disproportionately impacted sanitation workers who were on the 'frontline', yet often had little to no personal safety equipment, work protections or faced intense work pressure. We discuss potential opportunities arising …
*French with English translation*
This session examines the intersectional dimensions of sanitation work relating to gender, caste, class, race and age (including inter-generational change). The speakers cover particular challenges for women sanitation workers in India, Côte d'Ivoire, Madagascar and Senegal, and explore ways in which to visibilise often hidden or unseen working practices and …
A pre-recorded conversation between Dr Jen Barr and consultant, researcher and photographer Dr CS Sharada Prasad, who is behind many of the striking images used by international agencies to highlight the everyday lives of sanitation workers (especially those involved in manual pit latrine, septic tank, sewer, drain or dry latrine cleaning) across India.
In this recording, Dr Prasad reflects …
A pre-recorded conversation between Dr Sally Cawood and activist, writer, researcher and teacher Dr Hemangi Kadlak (Assistant Professor, Vellore Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu and Strivajin Foundation).
In this recording, Dr Kadlak discusses the motivations for her research on sanitation workers and manual scavenging in India, with important takeways for us all.
This session explores the changing nature of sanitation work from a global and historical perspective. It sets out to challenge misconceptions that sanitation work (including hazardous forms) is confined to the so-called 'Global South', or that the 'Global North' has found the 'solutions' to safe sanitation for all. Drawing on experience in India, Pakistan, the USA and Nigeria, the session …
This session explores the realities of sanitation work in urban settings across India and Kenya. Whilst distinct historically, socially, politically and geographically, hazardous forms of sanitation work (including manual pit or manhole emptying) persist in both countries. Speakers explore the changing realities of sanitation work in each country, including ways to improve working conditions for …
This session focuses on the changing terminology to describe sanitation work and workers, and persistent forms of stigma and discrimination that many workers face today. The speakers raise important questions about representation of workers in global and national-level advocacy, and the ongoing struggle to be recognised as an essential workforce.
Speakers
1. Dr. Sheeva Y. Dubey (Assistant …
The overall aim of the project was to identify the ways in which sanitation workers can improve and/or move out of hazardous and degrading forms of sanitation work – specifically pit latrine, septic tank, drain and sewer cleaning and emptying – in urban areas (small towns and large cities). The dire working conditions of sanitation workers – men, women and children engaged in the handling …
It is now globally recognized that sanitation workers face a fatality risk that is 10 times higher than workers in all other industries, and their injury risk is 2.5 times higher than that of miners. Pakistan is the most urbanized country in South Asia and most of the urban population resides in 10 large cities of which five are in the province of Punjab. In Punjab province, these big cities are …
The COVID-19 pandemic reached South Asia at the beginning of 2020 and by March most of the countries in the region had imposed lockdowns in an attempt to curb the rampant spread of the disease. Severe restrictions on movement were introduced and businesses were closed. Only the provision of essential services – including sanitation and waste management – were permitted to …
The rapid assessment attempts to collect information on the knowledge and awareness about transmission, symptoms, prevention and treatment of coronavirus, hand hygiene practices and concerns of sanitation workers and solid waste collectors about Covid-19 pandemic, the kind of safety measures put in place to protect these workers and the gaps that exist in terms of safety measures. Using …
WaterAid Pakistan commissioned this rapid assessment research on the knowledge, practices and perspectives of sanitation workers and solid waste collectors about Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan. The specific objectives of research were to understand the knowledge, practices and concerns of sanitation and waste workers regarding coronavirus, and; to find out the gaps and come up with recommendations …
The Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP) has been supporting the Government of Tamil Nadu (GoTN) in achieving total sanitation in the state, and are demonstrating innovations in two model urban locations – Tiruchirappali Corporation, and Periyanaicken-palayam (PNP) and Narasimhanaicken-palayam (NNP) town panchayats. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is supporting …
Sanitation workers provide services that are essential to public health, but often under terrible and hazardous working conditions. WaterAid Tanzania’s assessment highlighted the challenges they face and put forward the following recommendations for the Government and sanitation stakeholders:
• Advocate for the recognition of sanitation workers.
• Develop the capacity of Local …
While sanitation workers already face several health and safety risks, financial challenges and stigma due to the nature of their work and caste-based discrimination, the COVID-19 pandemic has further added to their challenges and vulnerabilities. The Urban Management Centre and WaterAid India jointly conducted a rapid assessment to understand the health, safety and social security challenges …
Sanitation workers are the backbone of the public hygiene and waste management system. Despite providing an essential public service, their work is often unrecognised. A majority of the workers too are unaware of the social security and welfare schemes instituted by both the Central and State governments for their wellbeing, which prevents them from availing the benefits such as pension, …
This report presents options for how to carry out a quantification and profiling through assessments of workers at city level. The report contains the suggested scope for a sanitation worker assessment, the dimensions to be assessed, questionnaires that could be used to generate data on these different dimensions, and possible options for presentation of both quantitative and qualitative data. …
Sanitation workers provide an essential public service to reach Sustainable Development Goal 6.2, but often at the cost of their dignity, safety, health, and living conditions. A key barrier to providing support for this profession is the insufficient data on sanitation workers and their work environment. As such, the aim of this assessment was to explore opportunities to support sanitation …
Sanitation workers provide an essential public service to reach Sustainable Development Goal 6.2, but often at the cost of their dignity, safety, health, and living conditions. A key barrier to providing support for this profession is the insufficient data on sanitation workers and their work environment. As such, the aim of this assessment was to explore opportunities to support sanitation …
Sanitation workers in India, usually belonging to the most vulnerable and marginalized caste groups and communities, had already been facing several challenges including health risks, low and irregular wages, financial struggles, societal discrimination, and lack of access to social security measures. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in additional struggles for them, as some of them were required …
The Sanitation Workers Project is a structured, first-of-its-kind 5-month long study of sanitation workers across India carried out by Dalberg Advisors in 2017.
The state of sanitation workers remains a blind spot, as workers face significant challenges on multiple fronts – financial, health and social. To develop a blueprint with solutions for this murky problem, we interacted with all the …
Sanitation workers provide a fundamental public service. Yet they often face extreme health hazards and safety risks on the job. In many developing countries, they are informal workers with no legal protections or rights. With a lack of visibility in society, they can be stigmatized, marginalized and ignored.
Here are the stories of five sanitation workers in their own words.
• You, as a sanitation worker, are exposed to occupational health and safety hazards. The work involves risk of coming in contact with hazardous biological and chemical agents
• PPEs are a crucial barrier between you and disease-causing agents at the work site
• It has been observed that the usage of PPEs is low. Fellow sanitation workers of yours have shared major reasons for this- …
Sanitation workers have been the foundation of the sanitation improvement story of urban India.
Sanitation sector and various services provided under it are hazardous in nature — some are moderately hazardous while many of them are extremely hazardous. The working environment puts sanitation workers to a wide range of health risks and diseases due to exposure to harmful pathogens, chemicals …
This Scheme is introduced to ensure that core sanitation services undertaken in urban areas of Odisha is done in a safe and dignified manner and shall come into force from the date of its notification and continue until further orders The Scheme will be implemented by the Housing & Urban Development Department through the 114 Urban Local Bodies of Odisha.
In 2018, Wai was chosen as one of the eight cities across the globe for the City Wide Inclusive Sanitation Program (CWIS) funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). The municipal council of Wai (WMC) with support from Center of Water and Sanitation (CWAS), CRDF, CEPT University (CEPT) is aiming to implement the CWIS goals
and principles in Wai.
Under the CWIS framework, one of the …
Safe collection, handling and transport of fecal sludge is an integral part of septage management. Limited attention has been paid to the safe collection, transport, disposal and treatment of human excreta from septic tanks. A study was conducted in two cities in India to understand the current desludging practices, the underlying reasons for current occupational practices and hazards, relevance …
Safety of sanitation workers remains an often-ignored aspect in Fecal Sludge Management. While shifting workers from manual to mechanical means of de-sludging remains a priority, this paper highlights that there are a number of safety issues, including exposure to sludge, faced by sanitation workers, even in a mechanised context, where de-sludging trucks are utilised to provide de-sludging …
Sanitation workers are a vital workforce, key to Sustainable Development Goal 6, and yet they are often denied their rights to safe work. But how can working conditions be improved, if authorities know nothing about them?
This report presents options for how to carry out a quantification and profiling through assessments of workers at city level. The report contains the suggested scope for a …
Sanitation has been declared one of the essential services during the COVID-19 crisis. Sanitation workers are an integral part of sanitation service delivery and TNUSSP team has been engaging with them with the objective of improving their safety, health and welfare. In response to the current public health crisis, TNUSSP has developed a set of guidelines for different categories of sanitation …
To celebrate the occasion of International Women’s day on March 8 th , the Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP) and the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) has launched a social media campaign on women in sanitation. The stories being shared on social media raises important questions, not just to women but also to men who are playing different roles across the full …
Safe collection and safe disposal of fecal sludge is a critical component of septage management in which desludging operators play a central role. In order to understand their work, consultations were conducted with desludging operators in the Periyanaicken Palayam and Narasimhanaicken Palayam town panchayats of Coimbatore district. These consultations aimed to understand the current desludging …
The world is alarmingly off-track to deliver sanitation for all by 2030. Despite progress, over half of the world’s population, 4.2 billion people, use sanitation services that leave human waste untreated, threatening human and environmental health. An estimated 673 million people have no toilets at all and practise open defecation, while nearly 698 million school-age children lacked basic …
The 30th SuSanA meeting - the first virtual of its kind - took place from August 17th to August 28th 2020. It was organised by the SuSana Secretariat with support and contributions from SuSanA Partners, Members, Working Groups and Regional Chapters.
This entry is the collection point of the different resources from the SuSanA Meeting, including recordings, presentations, flyers and program …
As part of the BCC component during Phase 1 of TNUSSP, a range of activities were undertaken in Tiruchirappalli and PNP – NNP. This included activities with general public, school children, sanitary workers and with Government officers of the ULBs. An assessment was carried out to understand the effectiveness of these activities, the findings of which are presented in this report.
Tiruchirappalli is a partially sewered city and a vast majority of the households are dependent on on-site sanitation systems. The city is serviced by nearly 30 private desludging operators and few urban local body owned trucks. In-depth interviews with desludging operators were conducted to understand their business, operational practices and challenges. This report presents the findings from …
This publication summarizes the sanitation and hygiene hopes and aspirations of thousands of women and men of different ages and physical ability, across rural and urban areas in eight South Asian countries. In these countries, over a billion people are without safe sanitation. They represent individuals and groups rarely heard because they are seldom asked what their constraints are, what they …
In this library entry we have grouped together up to five documents that we think are important "first reading" materials for anyone wishing to obtain a quick overview of this topic. For more details, please see the external links to the discussion forum below.
The documents listed in this library entry in reverse chronological order already exist as individual library entries but have been …
The sanitation workforce provides an essential public service to all. They clean and empty pit latrines, septic tanks, sewers and other sanitation systems, transport faecal sludge, remove contaminants from the sludge and process the sludge for disposal or reuse. Constantly exposed to faecal microorganisms, hazardous waste and harsh chemicals, sanitation workers are susceptible to several …
(2019)
Building on the success of the first four International FSM Conferences in Chennai (2017), Hanoi (2015) and in Durban (2011& 2012), the FSM5 conference brought together professionals working in the sector, including utilities, service providers, cities, governments, academics, scientists, consultants, donors and industries, to support the global initiative of disseminating sustainable solutions …
Every year, the human race produces over 350 million tonnes of poo – that’s enough to fill 140,000 Olympic swimming pools! Unless that human waste is properly dealt with, every single gram will pose a significant health risk to us and our planet.
Ensuring that our contact with human waste ends when we leave the toilet is one of the most important jobs in society, and yet around the world …
The global sanitation workforce bridges the gap between sanitation infrastructure and the provision of sanitation services. Sanitation workers provide an essential public service but often at the cost of their dignity, safety, health, and living conditions. They are some of the most vulnerable workers. They are far too often invisible, unquantified, and ostracized, and many of the challenges they …
WoMena’s SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Which, and how many, products are used?
This FAQ focuses on disposable or reusable products, which are commercially available. Little information is available on traditional or homemade products. Estimates of how many products are used differ widely. Some estimates from High-Income Countries indicate around 30 products per cycle (390 annually), …
The Sanitation Project
In 2017, Dalberg Advisors carried out a study of sanitation workers across India – the first of its kind – to understand the issue both from a worker perspective as well as a supply-side or institutional perspective
The Sanitation Workers Project is a structured, first-of-its-kind 5-month long study of sanitation workers across India carried out by Dalberg Advisors …
November 19 is World Toilet Day. Enormous progress has been made in the global effort to provide safe and affordable toilets for the world’s poorest citizens since World Toilet Day was first declared in 2001. Significant strides have been made in “reinventing” toilet designs for low-income, water-short, unsewered urban zones; celebrites such as Bill Gates and Matt Damon have brought this …
The responses provided a canvas of problems with sustaining ODF that covers technical, behavioural and physical issues. These issues, persistent since before SBM, must be overcome before India could move onto ODF+, ODF++ and ODF-S. All the issues were related to the ODF-centric approach of SBM that focussed only on toilet coverage.
The technical problems concerned the quality of construction …
This handbook has been prepared to guide the community health motivators, health and sanitation workers as well as community leaders to adopt and facilitate the CLTS approach in communities where sanitation programmes are being implemented. It is believed that this will help the concerned individuals to get a clear concept of CLTS and guide them to adopt its methods at the community level.
Nepal Government, Ministry of Education implemented the Letter grading system in SLC.The door of TSLC program is open for those who have appeared 10th grade exam and achieved any GPA and any grade in any subject. Focusing on such students the curriculum of TSLC of 29 months and 15 months has been converted into 18 months.
This is the competency based and market oriented curriculum guide for …
This discussion paper reviews the extensive literature on sanitation to show that inadequate access to this basic service prevents the realization of a range of human rights and of gender equality. We recognize that “dignity” is a highly culture- and gender-specific term; we therefore argue that sanitation for all—sanitation that serves all genders equally—must be designed and planned …
The Third International Faecal Sludge Management Conference was held in Hanoi from the 18th to the 21st of January 2015. More than 700 delegates from around the world shared ideas and discussed challenges and opportunities in on-site sanitation.
Below you find the list of papers in chronological order by day (Day 1-3) and room (room 1-3 ). In order to search by author, simply press "Ctrl+F" …
This library entry contains background documents for a grant that Mbaye Mbéguéré is leading and which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Further information and a discussion is available on the SuSanA discussion forum, see the link below.
Short description of the project (and goals):
The National Office for Sanitation in Senegal (ONAS) has received a $17,070,000 grant …
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