the goan I network
PANAJI
As people across the world commemorated November 19 as World Toilet Day, a shocking story of how five janitors have made a small ‘caretaker’s room’, next to the public toilets at the Panaji market, their ‘home’ has come to light.
The five have made the tiny room right next to the toilets in the city market their ‘home’ and have been cooking and sleeping there for years now, after their duty hours of cleaning the toilets during the day.
The scene is no different at the toilet block near the KTC bus stand in Panaji. There too, janitors live literally next to the public toilets in a single room where they cook, sleep and go about their duties.
While this has been going on for some years now, the Goa Women’s Forum (GWF), which is a branch of the Goa Civic and Consumers Action Network (GOACAN), on Tuesday made a representation to Deputy Collector Pratiba Naik about this issue, and several others related to the toilets at the bus stand and the market on the occasion of World Toilet Day.
Questioning whether the conditions in which the janitors live were in violation of human rights, Lorna Fernandes, head of GWF talking to ‘The Goan’, expressed sadness saying, “the janitors have to cook right next to the public toilets. They go to wash their food in the public toilets. Is this fair?” she asked.
