This week a group of women – known in India as scavengers (who use their hands to clean up human excrement for a living) – were invited by the UN to attend a conference to mark the UN’s International Year of Sanitation. Not only were the 36 women honored at the conference – they took part in a fashion show called The Mission Sanitation. The fashion show featured the women alongside top models from India and other countries. Some of the designer clothes worn by the models were embroidered by the women, the article says.
Scavengers are from Dalit community, which is the lower-caste in India, also knows as the “untouchables.” Great prejudice comes along with the title and many never overcome it.
Usha Chomar, who took part in the week’s festivities, quit scavenging in 2003, and urges women not to think the lifestyle is inescapable. “I tell all scavenging women that it is not impossible for them to change their lives and command just as much respect as any other human being,” she says.
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