How decolonised funding can help sanitation workers demand and realise their rights
From Bangladesh to Tanzania, a new model of financing is helping sanitation workers to demand better working conditions and pay from their employers and local governments. Here, five sanitation workers groups share how a pilot funding project has helped them advance their rights and improve service delivery.
Around the world, sanitation workers are responsible for delivering services that keep communities safe, stop the spread of diseases and support people’s health and wellbeing. Despite this they have, historically, been some of the most marginalised workers, but innovations in funding are helping to change that.
A pilot funding project by the Initiative for Sanitation Workers (ISW) uses decolonised funding approaches to empower sanitation workers to engage with policymakers, advocate for their rights and improve service delivery.
The pilot, named the Empowerment Support Fund, is based on building trust and places power in the hands of sanitation workers themselves, giving them the agency and the support to make decisions. This funding approach also helps build leadership and create more opportunities for sanitation workers to voice their opinions directly with local and national authorities. Since 2022, the ISW has provided small grants, amounting to approximately US$191,000, to eight organisations across Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania.
Here, five sanitation workers groups – who all received funding through the Empowerment Support Fund – share key learnings on how to advance the rights of sanitation workers and improve how sanitation is delivered.
1. Create models that can be replicated
In Tanzania, the Watu Kazi group has turned hazardous, informal sanitation work into a model of safety and advocacy. For years, manually emptying latrines was dangerous and even seen as illegal. But after a group of manual emptiers received two small grants from the ISW pilot, they were able to form a group, apply for grants and, with support from their local government, improve working conditions for sanitation workers across the region.
Group members received training to use semi-mechanised equipment called the Pitvaq to make their work safer. They also attended workshops focused on customer relations, marketing, bookkeeping, and loan application processes. As a result of the funding, group members could advocate for themselves and share their experiences with members of local government, which helped build empathy and support for workers. This model has been so successful that members of the Watu Kazi group now support emptier groups in other cities in Tanzania to improve their ways of working.
2. Support workers to advocate for themselves
Deep-rooted, caste-based discrimination means many of Bangladesh's Dalit community members are forced into hazardous sanitation work, employed on insecure contracts and paid low and unfair wages.
Ukenend Joy, a member of the Dhaka City Committee of Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Rights Movement, said: "I think this is the worst profession in the world. We often suffer from diseases due to the lack of safety systems while working in the sewers and drains. When we go to the doctor, we are considered impure and dirty. The authorities should keep in mind our safety issues.”
Through the Initiative for Sanitation Workers, the NGO Nagorik Uddyog received funding to raise awareness among workers about their entitlements, and influence decision-makers to support them. Together with members of the Dalit community in Bangladesh, Nagorik Uddyog helped workers to understand their rights, occupational health hazards, workplace safety measures, and to build leadership skills. Through workshops and consultations with sanitation workers, it has put forward recommendations for safety, fair wages, and dignity at work, and provided a much-needed space for workers to air their concerns.
3. Ensure workers understand the compensation they are entitled to
In Karnataka, India, sanitation workers face deadly conditions and are often forced to manually handle waste — a practice that is deeply dehumanising and extremely dangerous. Between 2020 and 2023, there were more than 90 deaths involving manual cleaning of manholes, septic tanks, and open drains in the state.
The local NGO Thamate supports sanitation workers to form community groups that demand accountability from the government, and has helped set up a grassroots network of sanitation workers from Tumkur district, called the Safaikaramchari Kavalu Samiti (SKKS). When a sanitation worker has an accident or dies in the course of their work, these groups act as a sort of union to create case documentation, help file police complaints, and support workers and their families to claim compensation. Between 2022 and 2024, a small grant from the Initiative for Sanitation Workers has helped to expand the SKKS network to several new districts in Karnataka, enabling more community members to better understand their rights and demand the benefits they are entitled to.
4. Come together as a group to voice concerns to local government
A staggering 80% of Pakistan’s sanitation workers are from the minority Christian community, who often have few other options for formal employment.
In 2017, Irfan Masih and two of his colleagues fell down a manhole while cleaning a sewer and died from exposure to toxic gases. All three had been working without protective gear and didn’t receive the appropriate medical treatment because hospital staff refused to touch their ‘impure’, faecal waste-covered bodies.
To combat this discrimination, sanitation workers set up the National Sweepers’ Association Pakistan with funding from the Initiative for Sanitation Workers to voice their concerns about contracts, poor working conditions and employment security, and gaps in social security access.
Pakistan’s Centre for Law and Justice also encouraged government officials to share meals with sanitation workers, helping to break down social taboos associated with the profession, and have reported a rise in confidence among sanitation workers in being able to speak to officials about their concerns.
5.Explore alternative professions
In Tamil Nadu, India, despite there being significant government schemes and support for manual scavengers, many workers are unaware of the benefits available to them – especially compensation after the loss of a worker. And as manual scavenging is caste-based, many workers are born into the profession and struggle to find routes into other kinds of employment.
Vizhuthugal is an NGO that helps build long-term routes out of the profession by providing training and support to pursue alternative careers like tailoring, driving, and running food stalls.
Vizhuthugal has been active for more than 20 years, but with support from the Initiative for Sanitation Workers, it has been able to expand its reach to neighbouring localities and run monthly meetings with sanitation workers. This has led to thousands of people having a better understanding of livelihood support, loans, educational scholarships, pensions and insurance.
For workers like Eswari, this support has been life-changing. After 15 years working as a contractual sanitation worker, she was able to access support through Vizhuthugal’s entrepreneurship training and financial services and set up a small business making mop yarns from textile waste.
Sanitation is an important part of public infrastructure, and needs to be supplied by a trained workforce that has the right equipment, knowledge and resources to do their jobs. There is still much to be done to make it a safe, dignified and respected profession, especially where there are social taboos around managing human waste. It is crucial that funding to the sector is flexible and available directly to sanitation worker groups themselves. With dedicated finances, that are decolonial in design and continue to place power in the hands of worker groups, sanitation workers can be empowered to demand dignity, safety and protection at work.
This article is a condensed version of a series of blogs published by the Institute for Sanitation Workers and has been republished with permission.
Top image: Delowar Hossain cleans a septic tank at a local community toilet in Dhalpur, Bangladesh. WaterAid/DRIK/Habibul Haque
