International Women’s Day 2022: TNUSSP in collaboration with OVERDUE and five other organisations launches the third edition of its ‘Women in Sanitation’ social media campaign, to celebrate women professionals in the sanitation sector.
The Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS) led Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP) launched the third edition of the ‘Women in Sanitation’ social media campaign. Going with the ‘International Women’s Day theme – Breaking the bias’, the campaign revolves around the stories of women professionals in the sanitation sector. TNUSSP has collaborated with five organisations in India – Biome, Environics Trust, Hasiru Dala, Mahila Housing Trust, Shelter Associates and an international project in urban Africa called OVERDUE, hosted by the Bartlett’s Development Planning Unit, University College London
Thanks to several decades of advocacy, gender is increasingly being recognised as a key element of development projects, including for sanitation. However, women are still only seen as users, participants, and beneficiaries, and their role as professionals is often overlooked or ignored. It is time we recognise and celebrate the professional roles that women play in the sanitation sector. We have women at the frontlines, as entrepreneurs, as technical experts, as administers and in many other roles- we only need to acknowledge, recognise and celebrate them.
Kavita Wankhade, Head of the Tamil Nadu Sanitation Support Programme
The #womeninsanitation campaign aims to do just that. Apart from celebrating the women, the campaign also hopes to generate much-needed conversations on the kind of challenges and biases women professionals in the sector face and how they overcome them.
Women face stereotypes and discrimination that ignore and undervalue their contributions towards just sanitation across cities and territories. But simply seeing and treating gender inequality as a problem affecting the ‘unfortunate other’ is not enough! Inequalities are not created equally: across the sanitation service chain, women experience discrimination compounded by their overlapping social identities, their gender, age, race, class, and tenure status, to name just a few.
As part of #womeninsanitation campaign, we call for challenging social norms and #BreakingtheBias by:– Ensuring fair distribution of resources and payment for their sanitation paid and unpaid work
– Acknowledging that while women shoulder the bulk of caring social functions in their households, neighbourhoods and cities, this is NOT in their DNA
– Expanding the political space for their meaningful participation in decision making.
Adriana Allen, OVERDUE Principal Investigator
Over the next three weeks, the ‘Women in Sanitation’ campaign will bring to you a series of short video-stories. Each film will tell the story of a different woman sanitation professional, working in different contexts, but in many ways facing different versions of similar biases.
The campaign features night sweepers, social and community workers, NGO and SHG leaders, small scale sanitation-based entrepreneurs and women in administrative positions in the Urban Local Bodies.
The sanitation sector is often (re)presented as male dominated, yet sanitation largely rests on women’s shoulders. They buy and use cleaning products. They sweep, clean, scrub and fix private and public toilets. They dispose of grey and black waters, emptying the pits themselves if needed. They advocate for sanitation within and beyond their households, communities, and cities. Valuing and supporting their work is key, both for gender equality and for public health
Ndeyé Penda Diouf, coordinator of the Observatory for Gender and Development of Saint Louis Senegal and member of the OVERDUE team
To know more about the campaign visit
https://muzhusugadharam.co.in/women-in-sanitation/
About OVERDUE
OVERDUE “Tackling the sanitation taboo across urban Africa” is a research-action network hosted by The Bartlett Development Planning (DPU) at University College London (UCL) and funded by the UK Global Challenges Research Fund (2020-2023). OVERDUE brings together researchers, , NGOs and activists working with the cities of Beira (Mozambique), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Mwanza (Tanzania), Antananarivo (Madagascar), Saint Louis (Senegal), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), and Bukavu (DRC). Based on an interrogation of historical and colonial narratives and a re-evaluation of gendered sanitation experiences, practices, and investments across the on-grid and off-grid sanitation continuum, OVERDUE aims to reframe and amplify conversations to support just sanitation.
To know more about our work, visit
https://overdue-justsanitation.net/
About IIHS and TNUSSP
Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP), led by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is the technical support unit to the Government of Tamil Nadu to help improve urban sanitation and scale Fecal Sludge Management across the state. The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) is a national education institution committed to the equitable, sustainable, and efficient transformation of Indian settlements. IIHS work spans across urban sectors including housing, land, water and sanitation, economic development, and climate change. IIHS is currently a 150+ strong institution with significant portfolios of research, practice, and executive education, based out of Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Tiruchirapalli.
To know more about our work, visit
https://tnussp.co.in/ and https://iihs.co.in/
For queries or interview requests, please contact:
Adriana (a.allen@ucl.ac.uk), +44 7525710703
Theodore (tpaul@iihs.ac.in), +91 96771 33877
Abhilaasha (abhilaashan@iihs.ac.in), +91 9884012847