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Outlawed 25 years ago, manual scavenging continues to be rampant in India

After The Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act 2013 came into being, the government recognised 12,742 manual scavengers in 13 states

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Manual scavenger. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Jahnavi Sen | The Wire Mainpuri (Uttar Pradesh)
At 10:30 am on any other day, the tehsil office in Mainpuri district’s Kishni town is barely waking up. But on April 20, a steady stream of people started pouring into the hall from the early hours. Men and women, from across the district came to register themselves as manual scavengers. And in doing so, forced the government to acknowledge that this practise still very much exists.

About three hours into the self-registration camp, a man walks in. Claiming to be a local reporter, he asks for basic details and then gets on the phone asking the person at the other