This panel will bring together practitioners, policy makers and UN representatives to deliberate on ways to accelerate implementation of “The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013” and strengthen national and state government initiatives for identification and rehabilitation of manual scavengers.

Speakers will include Mr. Ali Anwar, Member of Parliament; Mr. Coen Kompier, Senior Labour Specialist, International Labour Organization; Dr. Vijayalaxmi Sadho, Member of Parliament (TBC); Ashif Shaikh, Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan; and Mr. R. K. Singh, Chairperson, National Scheduled Caste Finance and Development Corporation; and Dr. Rebecca Tavares, UN Women Representative for India, Maldives, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
 
Manual scavenging refers to the practice of requiring people of a certain caste—and particularly women—to collect and remove human excrement from dry toilets, open defecation areas, and other unsanitary defecation facilities. Despite legal and programmatic interventions by central and state governments, manual scavenging persists and communities historically in the practice continue to be marginalized and excluded socially, economically and politically.