‘Are we not human?’ India’s trash pickers left out of vaccination rollout

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They are among the estimated 20 million people around the world who keep cities clean. But despite risks, they miss out on the health services they need.

Sanitation workers employed by local governments in South Africa and Zimbabwe are likely to be in line for the COVID-19 vaccine after health workers, unlike those who sort through the trash. At the Dandora landfill in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, some of the scavengers who are not eligible for a shot wear medical gear discarded by hospitals and health clinics, saying it protects them from the weather during the rainy season.

They often are already poor, moving to unfamiliar cities to eke out a living by sorting garbage, says Robin Jeffrey, a professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. That many of these workers in India belong to poor Muslim or Dalit communities, who once were known as “untouchables” at the bottom of the country’s caste system, adds a layer of prejudice.

Because the pandemic sent the price of oil crashing, it became cheaper to make new plastic than to recycle it. In many countries, closed borders brought recycling markets to a halt, lowering demand for reused materials that the workers collect.

 

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One way of diverting attention from the fiasco here is to point fingers at other countries and make people think 'how blessed we are '. Not even medicos getting vaccine in Queensland !

Well they might be immune to it already as they would be immune to many other diseases by now

The US/UK should sanction India for this “human rights violation”.

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