Manual Scavenging : Dignity buried beneath

Manual scavenging remains a critical issue in contemporary society, despite legislative efforts to eradicate it. This paper examines the socio-economic and cultural factors that perpetuate manual scavenging, evaluates the effectiveness of current policies, and proposes strategies for sustainable eradication and rehabilitation of affected communities. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study combines qualitative interviews with activists, policymakers, and manual scavengers with quantitative data analysis from reports from governmental and non-governmental organisations. The study analyses prevalence and health effects using statistical methods, and it offers insights into individual experiences and systemic issues through thematic analysis of interview data. This all-inclusive method seeks to convey the complex character of hand scavenging. Our findings of this study suggests that the parameters such as health, safety, economic well-being, compensation, technological advancement are of paramount importance where much can be done by the government to tackle the issues associated with such parameters. Moreover, substantial improvement can be done in the ‘standard of living’ parameters such as ‘sanitation’ and ‘housing’. While most workers are not satisfied with the governmental policies, however they do not find any gaps in parameters such as provisions of cooking fuel, electricity, bank accounts etc