New toilet technology empowers low-caste Indian women
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — Usha Chaumar was seven years old when she began collecting human excrement with her mother in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan.
By the age of 10 she had married and, with her mother-in-law, continued going from house to house performing this demeaning task.
"They used to call me 'Bhangi' (part of the lowest of Indian castes) and treat us badly," Chaumar, now 33, told AFP in an interview here.
She was one of the country's estimated 700,000 so-called human scavengers on the lowest rung of India's social hierarchy, who for centuries have had the wretched task of cleaning toilets and collecting human excrement.
Many Indians today still treat the waste-collectors as "untouchables" and don't let them approach their villages, schools or temples or come into contact with their food and drinking water.
"If I was thirsty, they would give me water but would avoid touching me," Chaumar said.
Five years ago, her scavenging days ended when she joined the Sulabh International Social Service Organization, a non-profit group working to improve sanitation in India and the conditions for this marginalized segment of society.
This week, with 2008 declared the International Year of Sanitation by the United Nations, the UN is honoring people like Chaumar -- and groups such as Sulabh -- to draw attention to the plight of her caste, and to explore ways to vastly improve sanitation conditions in thousands of communities around the developing world.
Sulabh set up a project called Nai Disha, which means "new direction," in Chaumar's hometown of Alwar. It pulled women out of scavenging by providing vocational training and teaching them to operate bank accounts.
For Chaumar, life took a dramatic turn for the better after she signed up for vocational training.
"Now I make pickles, snacks, do embroidery, beauty care, make candles and even take adult education classes," she said.
As a scavenger, she earned 300 rupees (seven dollars) per month. Now Sulabh pays her 2,000 rupees per month for her services -- enough, she says, to send her three children to school.
She also earns extra cash by using her skills at home.
"People who used to hate being around me now come to my house and ask me to make pickles or embroider their sari," she said.
By 2006 Sulabh had rescued about 60,000 scavengers, according to the UN Development Program (UNDP).
Sulabh is also pioneering sustainable sanitation technologies.
Bindeshwar Pathak, who founded the organization in 1970, developed the well-known Sulabh Sauchalya, an affordable and eco-friendly two-pit toilet.
Pathak said his invention helps slow global warming, saves water and converts human waste into natural fertilizer.
"Today 2.6 billion people (in Asia, Africa, Latin America) do not have access to safe and hygienic toilets," he told a press conference.
Pathak sees that changing. Sulabh has already sold his toilet technology to Afghanistan and 15 African countries. It has installed 1.4 million household toilets and 6,500 public toilets in India alone.
It now plans to build toilets in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Laos, Madagascar and Tajikistan.
Sulabh has also developed 26 toilet designs for varying budgets and locations, and trained 19,000 masons to build low-cost twin-pit toilets using locally available materials.
On Wednesday Sulabh holds a special sanitation event at UN headquarters to raise awareness and speed up progress towards achieving one of the UN's Millennium Development Goals -- to cut by half the number of people lacking access to basic sanitation by 2015.
The event will also feature a fashion show with clothes designed by Sulabh women. One of the designers will be Chaumar.
"I have walked with Indian models in two shows before," she said, "and I am ready to walk with models in New York."
