Have you come across this report? www.indiatimes.com/news/india/dalit-kids...s-humans-376575.html. This is one of the most terrible consequence of shaming and stigmatizing I have come across!

On the taxation issue, there is a bunch of work from behavioural economics about techniques to encourage people to pay tax many drawing inspiration from Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's 2008 book Nudge – improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness. Various nudge programs have been implemented by tax departments in many countries around the world. Technique range from pre-filling tax data, sending letters and email highlighting how many people have already paid their tax that year or what taxes are being used for, there is even work on what font, etc it should be sent it.

As a neo-Gramscian, I think this work is fine but misses the need for a broader social discourse about the value of taxation in contributing to individual and societal well-being. With neoliberal ideology so rampant, nudges are often not enough. 

Telangana woman dies of 'shock' after civic body dumps garbage outside house over unpaid tax

While reading the above news item, the first thought which crossed my mind was I (in my earlier avatar who focused on supply side issues) would suggest this and other social sanction measures to improve tax collection. Unfortunately, I also know quite a few practitioners who would make the same suggestion/s.  

Glad to find this old thread that has discussed the issue in great detail. As many members have pointed out in this thread, such moves infringe on individual rights. Practicing professionals  and municipal officials often fail to recognise the impact such moves could have on individuals at the receiving end of the treatment. While looking for relevant discussions, I also came
across another excellent thread ( Toilet marketing campaigns in developing countries erode people’s dignity – this is
not acceptable ). I am also reminded of the coercive tactics adopted in implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission (discussed across many
threads) and the paper on disconnection of water supply (discussed here Ethics in WASH research? - Enforcing Payment for Water and Sanitation Services in Nairobi's Slums )

But knowing that: 

• Poor financial health of local governments across India (across the Global South probably) is a concern
• Poor collection of taxes is one of the reasons from above and 
• Professions hired to suggest measures are likely to come across SuSanA discussions when they look for alternatives (google!!),

What are possible ways/measures to improve tax collections without infringing on individual rights? 
Please feel free to add even if they have remained in theory/documents and have not yet adopted.
Also what cautions should be built in the system before such measures are enforced? 

Regards
paresh

Hi all,

My first posting - I'm one of the authors of the article about CLTS in Indonesia. I do agree Detlef that human rights issues are global, as an Australian our treatment of refugees arriving by boat at the moment appals me but equally nothing will change at any level if we don't speak out against it!
I'm also hoping for some response from the World Bank, we sent it to the Jakarta office, so we'll see. But in the meantime the response from others interested in sanitation has been great. The question is how do we keep the debate and scrutiny of CLTS going? Any suggestions?

Best,
Susan

I can only repeat:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/5-clts...mit=12&start=12#6794

I would be very interested in the views on CLTS of colleagues from Africa, Asia and America!

Regards,
Detlef

This open access article is well worth reading. It contains harsh criticisms of how the WSP/World Bank implemented the CLTS approach in Indonesia. Interested to hear their response. See the post in Sanitation Updates, wp.me/paGBZ-2wM

Also relevant:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dech.12075/abstract

"In Indonesia as elsewhere, CLTS involves more than just education and encouragement; it uses social shaming and punishments. The authors argue that this is not only an inadequate approach but one which echoes coercive, race-based colonial public health practices."

Recently came across this interesting document:

www.ids.ac.uk/publication/the-dynamics-a...llenges-and-pathways

As we have been discussing the more "philosophical" challenges of CTLS, it seemed to fit rather well here.

Dear Colleagues,

Take it easy...
Don't we have all our own "human rights" on our own stupidity and ignorance?

CLTS and any of best sustainable WATSAN approaches will not change a bit on ongoing larger global developments regarding "stupidity and ignorance". I do not want to list down all the higher level odds, you know them all too.

Practicing real equal "human rights" on this higher level will abolish by it self over the time any CLTS's and others too...

All the Best
Detlef SCHWAGER

E.g.: Just one for X-mas, try to imagine by your self, what would be happen to African, Latin-American aid-workers, who maybe campaigning with TOTAL "Blame and Shame" about the many thousands of death Africans, Latin-Americans and Others in the Meditation Sea and on the US south-border throughout US and Europe... Will the Communities join them?

Shaming people, especially women, to stop open defecation, has again drawn criticism. This time in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, where a local government guideline promotes "tricks" to change behaviour "from catcalls to publishing names to photographing the people caught". Read "India, Madhya Pradesh: sanitation campaign humiliates women, say critics" at wp.me/aGBZ


Cor Dietvorst

Marijn Zandee wrote: If looked at it in this way, i think I can word some of my hesitation towards CLTS as: "CLTS encourages people to police (and discipline) each other,rather then leaving this to the (theoretically) impartial state. I do think there is a serious problem with this, and even though I am not a specialist I am quite sure this does go against the spirit and possibly against the letter of the human rights conventions.

Hmm, you are right I did not really think of this, even though I was subconsciously slightly hesitant to make that comparison.

I have to say that I agree with your insight theoretically, but such self-policing would and does happen in "western" countries too, where OD behavior is highly frowned upon and would result in expression of disgust, ridicule or worse.
And pragmatically speaking I don't see how that is not justified to some extend too, as after all OD behavior is directly detrimental to the health of all community members (and the police can't and should not be everywhere).

I guess it becomes problematic if really serious actions are taken, as in some of the examples described in the beginning and/or when power is abused by outsiders with an ODF agenda (government officials etc.).

On a quick thought, maybe it would make sense to create some sort or elected community committee to deal with conflicts arising from the CLTS process, as a sort of self-governing solution? But I guess in praxis it wouldn't make much difference as the majority could still "terrorize" a minority.

Ultimately I am however of the opinion that such extreme measures of self-policing do not happen normally, but are rather results of outside interference. An example for this would be the modified CLTS approach that includes handing out some reward after the community reaches ODF status.

P.S.: The reason I personally dislike the CLTS approach is a different one: I think in really rural areas where it admittedly works well, stopping OD is simply of relatively little concern due to low population density and largely useless in the presence of much livestock living directly amongst the people.
In more densely populated areas, CLTS becomes less and less effective due to different social dynamics, while on the other hand the public health concern becomes more stressing which ultimately should prohibit a "no-subsidy" approach like CLTS. And as explained above, including subsidies in CLTS leads to all sorts of unintended and negative consequences (which I think the original creators of CLTS realized very well).

Dear Julius,

I think in your before last post, you do make a very important point, but I am not sure you realized this;-). In any case, I had not thought about this before, but I think it is important.

While I agree with the general concern, shitting on the road or in a nearby bush will get you arrested and you will have to pay a penalty fee in basically every developed country (if a police officer sees you). And while that is of course not completely comparable, I don't think anyone would cry out that that is a violation of human rights.

I think there is a subtle thing here that is very key to the human rights angle of this thread. The word "police officer", in "the North" a police officer is a person authorized by the society to "police", in other words: to make sure people stick to the law. It is very core to the way our society is structured. And more importantly, a core function of having a police force is to make sure people do not take the law into their own hands, which leads to a situation where the strongest person gets his or her way.

If looked at it in this way, i think I can word some of my hesitation towards CLTS as: "CLTS encourages people to police (and discipline) each other,rather then leaving this to the (theoretically) impartial state. I do think there is a serious problem with this, and even though I am not a specialist I am quite sure this does go against the spirit and possibly against the letter of the human rights conventions.

Thanks, for getting me on this track,

Kind regards

Marijn Zandee

I am not really a fan of CLTS due to various other reasons, but if you really look at it closely you realize that it works (most of the time) because it makes people enforce compliance from others.

And that is not necessarily a bad thing as written above and also because we (you in this case) are all too quick in excusing OD behavior and blaming it on some more or less external factor like poverty etc.
The reality is however that for people who practice OD it is often simply more convenient or at least building a toilet ranks very low on their list of priorities.
Now the last part is somewhat understandable, given the stark realities many people face, but it is also true that even the most simple HH pit-latrine is an improvement over OD from a community health point of view, and that is something anyone can build for free. However unless forced to build & use one, many people simply can't be bothered.

Add to that, that a cheap and simple to build Arborloo type of latrine can actually be seen as an "adequate" sanitation solution in really rural areas, I don't see how we should continue to excuse OD behavior on the epidemic extent it is still practiced around the world.