New Delhi: Launching a year-long campaign ‘INDIA @80’ to end what they called the “national shame” of manual scavenging and dry latrines, the Safai Karmachari Abhiyan (SKA) have alleged that many women sanitation workers are still forced into the practice despite the Modi government’s claims in the parliament that it no longer exists.The campaign was launched in Delhi on Tuesday, September 1, in the presence of women sanitation workers, along with the NGO’s board members Narayanamma and Saroj Devi, Justice Madan Lokur, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, Justice Anjana Prakash and other eminent citizens.Economists Jayati Ghosh, Atul Sood, Ritkika Khera and Navsharan, Supreme Court advocate Vrinda Grover, RTI activists Anjali Baradwaj, Nikhil Dey and Amrita Jhori, MKSS Shankar, writer Geeta Hariharan and Prabir Purkayasta, feminist Sunita Dhar, Professor Nandini Sundar, actor Lokesh Jain and Indu Prakash were also present at the event.“When Government of India is claiming in Parliament that there is no manual scavenging in the country, women forced into manual scavenging [came] to the National Capital and bravely exposed this lie. They declared that manual scavenging and dry latrines still exist. They questioned ‘How can the government say there is no manual scavenging, when we are still forced to clean dry latrines everyday. When are we going to get freedom from this untouchability and slavery?’,” said SKA national convener Bezwada Wilson in a statement at the launch of the campaign.pic.twitter.com/2rEICukxSX— Bezwada Wilson (@BezwadaWilson) September 1, 2026The SKA members pledged to eradicate dry latrines and the practice manual scavenging in India, demanding that the government must give national priority to end it on war footing.At the launch, sanitation workers who travelled from different parts of India – including from Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar – shared their struggles and demanded that the government liberate them from this atrocity, so that the next generations do not have to face what they are facing. Narayanamma, a board member of Safai Karmachari Andolan said that she was cleaning dry latrines with 600 seats when she got liberated, and since then she has dedicated her life to end the practice. Deepthi Sukumar pointed out that repeated laws, Supreme Court orders and policies are not letting this practice to end that is deeply rooted with caste, patriarchy, untouchability and slavery. While Jurist Usha Ramanathan demanded that the government approach it as an act of untouchability, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia expressed shock after knowing that manual scavenging was being practised in more than 40 districts of India.Meanwhile, Justice Madan Lokur stated that SKA and community are continuously fighting the legal battle to end manual scavenging and that they have repeatedly approached the supreme court to eradicate manual scavenging but nothing has moved so far. “Parliament is being told lies,” he said.SKA’s Wilson stated that even after 80 years, “if we have to come to Delhi to show ourselves as living proof, that there is manual scavenging, it shows the casteist mindset of government.”He said that he started the fight when he was 16 years old and now he is 60 years old but manual scavenging in dry latrines still not eradicated, and that the courts were not doing enough.In a report in July, the SKA had highlighted the death of 101 people across the country since January 2026 – half a year – while engaged in manually cleaning sewers and septic tanks, adding that its previous figure – 121 deaths for the whole of 2025 – showed the situation was worsening.It had said that over 1,726 deaths were reported across the country since 2013. A death was being reported while cleaning sewers and septic tanks, on average, “every 45 hours”, it had said.