A/HRC/45/10/Add.2 41. The Special Rapporteur reiterates that the Government has the responsibility to progressively realize the human rights to water and sanitation of all persons by identifying groups in vulnerable situations, as well as patterns of discrimination, and taking steps to redress them (A/HRC/45/10). The Special Rapporteur therefore emphasizes his recommendation that overall targets for increasing access to water and sanitation be complemented by targets to reduce inequalities (A/HRC/55/Add.1, para. 58). PROGRESS LIMITED: The Special Rapporteur urges the Government to focus monitoring of access to water and sanitation services based on data disaggregation by prohibited grounds of discrimination and to use those monitoring to inform policies. IV. The human rights to water and sanitation A. Recommendation on safety of sanitation 1. Recommendation on manual scavenging practices RECOMMENDATION 12: “Establish a monitoring system to follow the process of emptying pit latrines under the national programs, in order to control possible trends of increases in manual scavenging practices, ensuring that this practice is not carried out in a caste-discriminatory manner;” (A/HRC/39/55/Add.1, para. 71(n)). 42. During the visit, the Special Rapporteur met several people who indicated that they themselves, their relatives or their neighbors continued to be employed in manual scavenging, often for lack of alternative employment options (A/HRC/39/55/Add.1, para. 26). In relation to the twin-pit latrine, the standard technology for excreta disposal in the Clean India Mission, the Special Rapporteur questioned whether it will be properly used to reduce manual scavenging practices by scheduled castes (A/HRC/39/55/Add.1, para. 28). 43. While the availability of faecal sludge disposal mechanisms were monitored, the monitoring did not extend to the management of those mechanisms, particularly emptying the pits. For instance, the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey 2018-2019 found that a “septic tank with soak pit, single leach pit, double leach pit, closed drain with sewer system and closed pit” existed in 99.6 per cent of the households.21 This did not account for how, or whether, pits are emptied, however. A 2019 WaterAid India report describes pit emptying services in rural areas as being managed by an informal and varied group of private service providers, with a lack of regulations and non-adherence to safety standards. The situation is similar in urban areas: in a 2019 report on public toilets in Delhi, ActionAid India found that 38 per cent of septic tanks were being manually cleaned.22 44. The Special Rapporteur is concerned by this insufficient regulation and surveillance of pit emptying. As reported by WaterAid, between January 2017 and September 2018, an estimated 123 persons died as result of manual scavenging.23 In addition, persons employed in manual scavenging suffer from discrimination, being seen as ‘impure’ for handling human waste. Results from the 2018 Social Attitude Research India survey showed that 23 per cent of Dalits in Delhi and 20 per cent of Dalits in the State of Uttar Pradesh reported believing that caste discrimination is worsening. 24 This stigma impacts the access to sanitation by persons who do not have access to formal pit-emptying services: as the castes who usually practice manual scavenging increasingly turn away from the practice, latrine owners have been shown to return to open defecation practices rather than to empty their own latrines.25 21 22 23 24 25 National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey 2018-19, 68. ActionAid India, Public Toilets for Young Urban Women: A report on Gender Responsive Public Services in Six Cities of India (2019), 3. WaterAid, The hidden world of sanitation workers (2018), 2. Hathi, P. and Coffey, D., Open defecation: manual scavenging’s legacy in rural India (2018). Ibid. 11