“A period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education”

A documentary on menstruation, set in rural India, titled Period. End of Sentence, won the

Oscar in the Documentary Short Subject category at the 91st Academy Awards (24th

February 2019). Iranian filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi has directed the short film, which has

been produced by Indian producer Guneet Monga's Sikhya Entertainment.

The film came into being a part of The Pad Project, started by students at the Oakwood

School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton. From the award-winning director

Rayka Zehtabchi, the producer Guneet Monga, and a hardworking group of students,

parents, and teachers from a small high school in Los Angeles, California, comes Period. End

of Sentence. Winner of the Academy Award qualifying festivals for Best Short Doc at The

Cleveland International Film Festival, The Traverse City Film Festival as well as many others

including AFIFest, and Savannah. India's moment at the Oscars comes exactly a decade after

A R Rahman and sound engineer Resul Pookutty won the Academy awards for Slumdog

Millionaire in 2009.

The documentary follows a group of local women in a village outside Delhi located in

the Hapur District, as they learn how to operate a machine that makes low-cost,

biodegradable sanitary pads, which they sell to other women at affordable prices. When a

sanitary pad machine is installed in the village, the women learn to manufacture and market

their own pads, empowering the women financially as workers and as a sales force, and also

in terms of self-confidence. The women there are leading a quiet revolution, fighting against

the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation. Their growing independence garners them a new

level of respect from the men of their community, and the taboo on mentioning a woman’s

period is disappearing. This not only helps to improve feminine hygiene by providing access

to basic products but supports and empowers the women to shed the taboos in India

surrounding menstruation, all while contributing to the economic future of their community.

Today, the unit employs seven women, between 18 and 31 years of age. They work six days

a week and are paid a monthly salary of 2,500 rupees. The centre produces 600 pads a day

and they are sold under the brand name Fly. This little business, run from two rooms in a

village home, has helped improve feminine hygiene. Until it was set up most women in the

village were using pieces of cloth cut out from old saris or bedsheets when they had their

period, now 70% use pads. It has also de-stigmatised menstruation and changed attitudes in a

conservative society in ways that were unimaginable just a couple of years ago.

HEEALS (Health, Education, Environment And Livelihood Society) is one of those

organizations directly involved in facing menstrual taboo in India. It is working on Water

Sanitation, Menstrual Hygiene and Children Education projects in seven states. Through

spreading education on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and organizing WASH and MH

workshop, HEEALS is working to increase the attendance rates of girls in schools who drop

out from school due to their period, reduce the number of diseases and improve

self-confidence of girls in Indian society. We can’t be more proud that a documentary on

menstrual hygiene in India won an Oscar at the Academy Awards. This shows a general

interest in this delicate topic which is a common taboo across our society. We hope that this

awards will raise awareness all over the country and abroad to face a social stigma that is

necessary to break down. Furthermore we firmly agree with Melissa Berton, the film

producer, who told the crowd while accepting the Oscar: "A period should end a sentence,

not a girl’s education!”. Much more needs to be done in this sector, and we hope that Period.

End of Sentence could motivate other people to help girls and women around India.

-Manuel

WASH Intern

References:

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/documentary-short-oscar-winner-period-endsentence-

girls/story?id=61281827

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47307335

https://www.businesstoday.in/trending/entertainment/netflix-indian-short-documentaryperiod-

end-of-sentence-wins-oscar/story/321940.html

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/period-end-of-sentence-short-documentary-aboutmenstruation-

and-sanitary-pads/

https://www.thepadproject.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Period._End_of_Sentence.

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Manual Scavenging: an ongoing problem in India

Manual scavenging refers to the practice of manually cleaning, carrying, disposing or handling in any

manner, human excreta from dry latrines and sewers. It is a caste-based occupation and the vast majority of workers involved are women. This practice was banned with the passing of the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993 and with the Prohibition of Employment As Manual Scavengers & their Rehabilitation Act 2013, but it continues to find practitioners. The occupation persists mainly because of the continued presence of insanitary latrines.There are about 2.6 million insanitary latrines (dry toilets) that require cleaning by hand.This dehumanizing practice is prevalent across many indian states, and it is done by people who fall lowest in the caste hierarchy. Not only is this practice humiliating but also a major cause of

discrimination.

Manual scavenging exists in many forms:

- Dry latrines, the oldest and most common form. Workers gather the waste manually, then carry it out of the house in baskets and dispose it outside the village. 98% of these workers are women.

Community Dry latrines (big structure used collectively by people) and Individual Dry Latrines (present at individual houses) are estimated to be 2,600,000 all over the country. According to the House Listing and Housing Census 2011, states such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra,Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal account for more than 72% of the insanitary latrines in India.

- Railway track scavenging, the biggest violator of the law in India is the Indian Railways (the ministry continues to deny the practice of manual scavenging) where many train carriages have toilets dropping the excreta from trains on the tracks and who employ scavengers to clean the tracks manually. There are about 8,025 railway stations in the country which ferry about 23,000,000 passengers everyday and an estimated number of 36,176 railway cleaners.

- Cleaning of sewers and septic tanks, prevalent in urban areas. Workers gather the sewage with bare

hands, sometimes while neck deep in sewage. Many people die every year by inhaling poisonous gases.With an estimated number of 770,000 sewer cleaners the average of reported deaths is around 600 every year.Manual scavengers are at a double disadvantage. They are members of lower castes and as such, face enormous discrimination in society, and second, are disadvantaged because they are manual scavengers who clean human excreta. The challenge of rehabilitation is urgent, and requires a comprehensive approach that moves beyond expanding income generation or providing loans, to focus on various aspects crucial to secure the future of the next generation of liberated manual scavengers. Manual scavenging is not only a caste-based but also a gender-based occupation with 90% of them being women. 

Households with dry latrines prefer women to clean the excreta instead of men as they are located inside the house.According to a Human Rights Watch report, on an average, women get paid as little as between Rs 10 and Rs 50 every month per household. It is much less than men who earn up to Rs 300 a day for cleaning sewer lines.There have been various efforts by the government, civil society organizations, and the foreign donor community to end manual scavenging. However there are significant barriers to achieving lasting change.Overcoming them requires a serious commitment from the government to ensure adequate programs are in place and to hold officials at all levels accountable for implementing laws and policies aimed at ending manual scavenging.

Legislative attempts to end manual scavenging have been accompanied by administrative programs,

referred to as schemes, and policies directed at converting India’s sanitation system and at helping

communities engaged in manual scavenging seek alternate livelihoods. The responsibility for

implementing these schemes and policies rests with a number of different government departments,

which often do not coordinate their efforts. The Government of India has adopted a two-pronged

strategy of eliminating insanitary latrines through demolition and conversion into sanitary latrines, and developing a comprehensive rehabilitation package for manual scavengers through a survey. 

However,while manual scavenging for many may have ended as a form of employment, the stigma and discrimination associated with it lingers on, making it difficult for former or liberated manual scavengers to secure alternate livelihoods and raising the fear that people could once again return to manual scavenging in the absence of other opportunities to support their families.

In contrast to government failure, the success of civil society organizations in empowering individuals to leave manual scavenging confirms that, with directed effort, it is possible to end the practice. Without effective government programs, civil society and community based organizations are working to generate livelihoods for individuals who leave manual scavenging. For instance, they have piloted gender and market sensitive vocational training. According to Bezwada Wilson, founder of Safai Karmachari Andolan (a movement for elimination of manual scavenging), the Indian government has responded positively to these initiatives by engaging in serious dialogue with civil society organizations. These efforts offer strategies and good practices to translate India’s legislative commitments into effective action at the local level.Various United Nations agencies and international human rights bodies have also addressed manual scavenging: 

UNICEF has approached manual scavenging as a water and sanitation issue; the World

Health Organization (WHO) has taken up manual scavenging as a health issue; UNDP has a special task force on the issue of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; UN Women addresses manual scavenging based upon that fact that 95 percent of manual scavengers who clean dry toilets and open defecation are women; and the ILO focuses on ending manual scavenging by supporting implementation of relevant government policies in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. On January 31, 2013, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Navi Pillay, appealed to the Indian government to take action to end manual scavenging.

Government, civil society organizations, and the foreign donors intervention is needed to end caste based labor designations that bind women and men to manual scavenging. To overcome the entrenched obstacles discussed above, individuals need immediate access to alternate livelihoods and housing, and an effective response when they face threats of violence.

HEEALS (Health, Education, Environment And Livelihood Society) is one of those organizations

directly involved in facing manual scavenging problem. It is working on Water Sanitation and Toilet

Building projects in seven states: Delhi (National Capital Region), Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal,

Uttranchal, Leh and Uttar Pradesh. HEEALS works in marginalized communities, slum schools, schools in unauthorised colonies, orphanages and refugee camps. Through spreading education on Water,Sanitation and Hygiene, organizing workshop against Manual Scavenging and building clean and safe toilets, HEEALS is working to increase the attendance rates of pupils in schools who leave their studies to work as manual scavengers, reduce the number of diseases and deaths and improve the health of people across Indian society.

- Manuel
WASH Intern


References:
Human Rights Watch interview with Bezwada Wilson, national convener of Safai Karmachari Andolan,Delhi, December 13, 2013.
United Nations Development Programme and UN Solution Exchange (Gender Community of Practice),
“Report of National Round Table Discussion on Social Inclusion of Manual Scavengers,” December 21,2012.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/waste/manual-scavenging-a-stinking-legacy-of-suffocation-andstigma-
61586
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_scavenging
http://www.hrw.org
http://in.one.un.org/page/breaking-free-rehabilitating-manual-scavengers/
https://www.safaikarmachariandolan.org
http://southasia.oneworld.net/features/manual-scavengers-indian-railways-in-denial#.XHjD7a1aa1t
http://www.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/pub-povertyreduction/Social-inclusion-of-Manual-
Scavengers.pdf

Fighting hunger and malnutrition: Is the Midday meal scheme really effective?

In the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a party, India has committed to yielding “adequate nutritious foods" for children. Proper nutritional support is fundamental for children from their birth through adolescence, as it has a profound impact on their ability to grow, learn, and thrive. It is a well-documented fact that chronic malnutrition impairs the physical as well as cognitive development in growing children. The Mid-Day Meal Scheme is a school meal program implemented in 2001 by the Government of India. It was an improvement over the existing nutrition program which guaranteed food grains to children enrolled in Government and Government-aided schools. It has been initiated to address the issue of classroom hunger in school-aged children by providing a cooked meal every day. It is designed to improve the nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide.The program supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary and upper primary classes in government, government aided, local body and alternate innovative education centers. 

One of the first surveys on the Mid-Day Meal, by Dreze and Goyal (2003), highlighted several good consequences of the scheme, such as improved attendance rate, child nutrition and social equality. Interviews revealed that the introduction of the MDMS improved not only the attendance of children, but also made them more likely to stay after the lunch break; it has also proved helpful in eradicating hunger. In areas where hunger is endemic, the Mid-Day Meal might be the only thing saving children from chronic malnutrition.The Mid-Day Meal Scheme has played an important role enhancing enrollment, attendance in schools, and in improving socialization among classes. To that effect, it has surely done its part in helping eradicate hunger. Moreover, it gave women the chance to get employed. 

The program has undergone many changes since its launch. With the enactment of the National Food Security Act in 2013, the nutritional content of food (calorie and protein content requirement has since been increased for MDMS) has become an integral part of the right to food in the country. Moreover, from the year 2009 onwards the following changes have been made to improve the implementation of the scheme: I. Food norms have been revised to ensure balanced and nutritious diet to children of upper primary group by increasing the quantity of nutritional ingredients II. Cooking cost (excluding the labour and administrative charges) has been revised III.The honorarium for cooks and helpers was paid from the labour and other administrative charges per child per day provided under the cooking cost. Moreover, specific norms for engagement of cookcum-helper have been made.This shows that the scheme is muddled in the game of numbers rather than going into the qualitative aspects of the food served. 

Even if the Mid-Day Meal Scheme is an innovative scheme to get children from poor socioeconomic status to enroll for elementary education it has been facing serious problems. This is mainly due to the poor quality of food served because of inadequate infrastructure and adverse impact on children’s health & subsequent. Secondly, the government’s focus is on reach not on quality but quantity. The government only concentrates on statistics as to how many number of schools they are able to cover and provide food. They don't give importance to quality. In fact, most of the children who study in village government schools are very poor and end up eating this as their only meal for the day. There is no one to inspect the quality of the food being served to them. 

In Bihar on July 16 20013 23 children lost their lives after eating their Mid-Day Meal due to poisoning because the oil used for cooking was kept in was previously used to store pesticide. There are many such unreported cases where students who eat this meal have reported of dysentery and ill health. So parents and children fearing safety have declined to have food served in these Mid-Day Meals . The MDMS guidelines dictate that the meal should be of good quality, nutritious, tasty, digestible, and varying from day to day to ensure variety in the menu. Moreover, high standards of hygiene and cleanliness are expected to be maintained during the cooking and serving of the meal, along with transparency in accounts. Additionally, states having indulged in diversion of funds meant for the scheme, for instance providing less rice to schools. Another problem related to the Mid-Day Meal Scheme is afflicted with large-scale caste and gender-based discrimination. In some places the upper caste children refuse to eat food cooked by lower class women and backward classes students are made to sit separately from the others. 

Lastly, it emerged during the study that though 99 per cent of the schools had facilities for operation of the MDMS, and 97 per cent of them provide cooked meal during most the days, yet in about 11 per cent of the villages, the food was served only a few days a week, while in 2 per cent of the cases, it was served very rarely. In 38 per cent of the cases, the prescribed menu was not followed and the quality of food was also allegedly poor. 

HEEALS is directly involved in implementing hand washing with soap in the Mid Day scheme in children’s daily routine. It is working on WASH (water, sanitation and Hygiene) projects in seven states works in slum schools, schools in unauthorized colonies, orphanages and refugee camps. Through spreading education on sanitation and personal hygiene and delivering basic hand washing material, HEEALS is working to increase the attendance rates of pupils in schools, reduce the number of diseases and deaths and improve the health of people across Indian society. Moreover, another HEEALS commitment is to promote children cooperation between genders and castes.

-Bene 

WASH & MH Intern Coordinator 

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