Harriette's Highlights: Tuesday 18 August

The World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden entered its second day with a lot of verve, seminars and side events, taken place simultaneously. For me what was particularly interesting and mind blowing was how millions of Indians especially women were surviving the hideous, dehumanizing job of manual scavenging, where they actually clean toilets and collect human excreta using their bare hands.

The dream of young mothers, wives and children born into a scavenger family is shattered forever as they are unable to find their level in society due to the deep discrimination against them.The desperation of the millions of such people in India was best captured by Mr. Wilson Bezwada in a video he showed entitled "The worst job in the world".

I interviewed Mr. Bezwada, in charge of the Safai Karmachari Andolan earlier in the Water Cube.tv. He expressed his disgust over this inhuman practice and vowed to do all in his power to end the appalling situation by liberating the women from the shackles of ‘shit cleaning’.
Mr Bezwada called for a global support to enable him first of all undertake a national survey in 252 districts.

Beyond African Declarations and Commitments was another session I joined. Although it started quite late, the seminar room was full to capacity not just by Africand but also by Europeans, Asians and Americans. It showed a wide interest in improving the environmental sanitation and water management needs of Africa.

Harriette Naa Lamiley Bentil e-mail