Ex manual scavenger from desert state to address water forum

New Delhi, Mar 5 (PTI) A 36-year-old woman from Rajasthan, who was once a manual scavenger, has been invited to deliver an address at the World Water Forum in France's port city Marseille beginning March 14. Usha Chaumar, who hails from Alwar, will deliver a lecture on the issue of manual scavenging and role of women in sanitation at the biggest gathering of the water and sanitation experts and thinkers. "The World Water Forum has invited Usha from Alwar to Marseille so she can tell the world about the change in lives of hundred of women from pain and suffering into renewed hope," Dr Bindeshwar Pathak of Sulabh International said. It was Sulabh which was instrumental in rescuing her from the job of manual scavenging. Usha was married off at age ten and was forced into manual scavenging -- the only livelihood her family has known for generations. "We found it extremely humiliating, but there was no choice as we had been doing this work for years and upper caste people insisted that we were only good for this," said Usha.