"We cannot miss work even for a day as the dirt gets piled up in the dry latrines and the stench worsens. Even if we want to take a day off, the families forcibly drag us from our homes," Namrata (name changed), in her early 30s, told IANS.
"I could not escape this work even during my pregnancy. My child is stunted and always sick," Namrata added.
One common factor in these women is their reddish-black corroded teeth that comes from chewing gutka (flavoured betel nut) most of the time.
"To clean the mess, either you have to be dead drunk or have gutka in your mouth. The scent of gutka keeps us from vomiting," Reena said.
"The government claims that these women have been rehabilitated, but this is not the case. The majority of them had to get back to manual scavenging because they could not get jobs," Rajesh Sharma, programme coordinator of local NGO Dang Vikas Sansthan, told IANS.
"I thought my life would become better when I was employed as a sweeper in the nagarpalika (civic body), but I got thrown out of the job after two months because it was a contractual one," Meena (name changed), told IANS.
"I was left in the lurch because I was jobless. I had to resort to manual scavenging as nobody employed me because of my caste and past job," a distraught Meena added.
These women live on the largesse of the houses they work in.
The yellow floral sari which a pale looking Ratan (name changed), in her early 30s, was wearing and the bracelet on her wrist are gifts from her employers, she said.
"Can you ever imagine us buying clothes? We wear the worn out clothes of our employers," said Ratan.
Their children are malnourished with stunted growth.
But then, help looks near at hand. The district administration, perhaps rattled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise of "Swach Bharat" (clean India) to provide toilets in every home by 2019, said it would "look into" their case.
"Manual scavenging is a blot on modern India. It's a matter for the municipal council to do something. I will look into their cases," district collector Babulal Jatawat told IANS.
