Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean Life, D 10 ecember 13-19, 2019
By Andrés Hueso
Andrés Hueso is Senior
Policy Analyst – Sanitation,
WaterAid.
LONDON, Dec. 10, 2019
(IPS) - This year’s Human
Rights Day advocates for
everyone to stand up for
their rights and those of
others.
Yet this will feel like a
distant reality for the millions
of sanitation workers
in developing countries
who are forced to
work in conditions that
endanger their health and
even their lives.
“The human rights
of millions of sanitation
workers, in particular
informal workers, have
been violated for a long
time, despite the critical
importance of their role,”
Léo Heller, the Special
Rapporteur on the human
rights to safe drinking
water and sanitation, said
in his World Toilet Day
statement last month.
“Amid stigma, low pay,
informality and hazardous
working conditions,
many of them lose their
lives while they are at
work and very often, it
is the omission of governments
to comply with
their human rights obligations
that gives room
for those unacceptable
situations.”
There is particular concern
over the discrimination
against manual scavengers,
people that are
socially (and sometimes
institutionally) designated
to do sanitation work
because they belong to
the lowest rungs of the
caste hierarchies in South
Asian countries.
They clean latrines,
empty septic tanks and
unblock sewers by hand,
and sometimes have to
immerse themselves in
human waste. In India,
despite the fact that manual
scavenging was outlawed
in 1993, hundreds
of thousands of families
are still trapped in it.
Meenadevi, a woman
from the state of Bihar,
started working as a manual
scavenger 25 years ago
with her mother-in-law,
who died on the job. “Initially,
I used to feel nauseated,
but now I am used
to the foul smells,” she
says. “Poverty leaves you
no option.”
The stigma and risks
facing sanitation workers
is also prevalent in many
parts of the world, as a
recent report by International
Labour Organisation,
WaterAid, World
Bank and World Health
Organisation shows.
Few developing countries
have policies, guidelines
and enforcement
mechanisms to protect
the health, safety and dignity
of sanitation workers;
especially when their work
is informal, they lack recognition
and social protection.
In Burkina Faso in West
Africa, where only 22.6
per cent of the population
have access to basic
sanitation, there is little
regulation, particularly
for the manual emptiers,
who use ropes to lower
themselves into pits and
septic tanks, usually with
no protective equipment,
and are exposed to deadly
asphyxiating gases.
Wendgoundi Sawadogo
works as a manual emptier
in the capital city,
Ouagadougou, for local
households who contact
him directly for his services.
“You have no paper to
show that this is your pro-
By Zellnor Myrie
During her time in Congress,
Shirley Chisholm introduced
more than 50 pieces of legislation
and played a critical role
in the expansion of SNAP and
the creation of WIC (Women,
Infants, and Children) funding.
Politics as usual is usual no
more.
On the federal level, we have
the most diverse Congress in
this country’s history. Locally,
the state legislature, for the first
time in its history, is led by a
black woman and man who,
along with the assistance of lifelong
advocates, helped usher
through the most progressive
legislative session we’ve seen in
decades.
Much of this is thanks to the
group some have called the backbone
of the Democratic Party:
black women. According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, 55% of eligible
black women voters cast
ballots in last year’s midterm
elections, six percentage points
above the national turnout, and
they are one of the most consistent
groups of Democratic voters.
Yet despite the progress black
women have brought, they are
being left behind.
Severe maternal mortality
rates are as much as three times
higher among black women than
white women, and these rates
have been going up, not down,
in recent years.
This morbidity rate cuts across
levels of education, wealth, and
socioeconomic status. The rate
holds even when you control for
other variables. All of this is why
this year, the legislature established
two new state entities to
investigate the alarming maternal
deaths and maternal morbidity
rates affecting women across
New York.
But in an age of political revolution,
sweeping ideals, and even
discussions around reparations,
now is the time for us to dream
even bigger.
This past Saturday would have
been the 95th birthday of one
of New York’s greatest visionaries:
Shirley Chisholm. Today,
Chisholm is rightly recognized
as a hero — we just dedicated
a state park to her legacy in
Brooklyn. But back in her heyday,
people weren’t so receptive.
The Democratic Party blocked
her from participating in televised
debates, and most of her
congressional colleagues chose
not to support her during her
presidential run. Still, “Fighting
Shirley” introduced more than
50 pieces of legislation and played
a critical role in the expansion of
SNAP and the creation of WIC
(Women, Infants, and Children)
funding.
Since then, black women in
OP-EDS
Sanitation and
decent work are
both human rights,
and one human
right cannot come
at the expense of
another.
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Continued on Page 11
Continued on Page 11
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Human rights? But not
for sanitation workers
Let’s attack severe
maternal morbidity
at its Brooklyn
epicenter
A sanitation worker without protective gear. WaterAid
/schnepsmedia.com