The Stinking Life
Humans working – and dying - inside stinking and poisonous manholes
is a common occurrence in Pakistan. However, people have grown
indifferent to the plight of sanitary workers.
Life would become miserable if the road outside your house was inundated with filthy gutter slush or there is a constant foul smell emanating from it or there are huge piles of garbage all around and it is difficult for you to breath. You would have many sleepless nights and a persistent headache.
The persons who provide you relief from such ordeals and facilitate in letting people live in a stench-free, environment are themselves the most marginalized, overlooked and ill-treated workforce You are not even aware of their work. But you must accept that no other person can either do or be willing to do the work they do at any cost.
The sanitary workers all over Pakistan are the most neglected and exploited class of society. They work in pathetic conditions at low wages and there is hazardous impact on their health at all times. Legislators may have brought the agriculture and construction workers within the ambit of labour laws, but they have so far ignored the sanitary workers. This neglect may be judged from the fact that the National Sanitation Policy, 2016 and the Sindh National Policy, 2017 do not mention sanitary workers.
Extending labour laws formally to sanitary workers will not be enough as the respective provincial governments will have to ensure that these are implemented in letter and spirit such as providing them the required safety equipment like gas masks, uniforms, safety kits, gloves and boots, etc. These workers face a fatality risk that is 10 times higher than workers in all other industries. Their misery is compounded by the outdated civic infrastructure and poor attention to workplace safety, discrimination and negative social attitudes against the profession.
Entering the sewage pipes through manholes with bare bodies and remaining there till the material causing the blockage, is removed and thrown out, has been an old practice of the sanitary workers. Such hazardous entry into the filthy tunnels sometimes exposes them to lethal gases or bites from poisonous insects, causing their death. Young Rafiq Masih died in August 2019, when he was cleaning a storm water drain in Landhi, Karachi, while his colleagues fell unconscious from inhaling toxic fumes. Earlier, in 2017, another young man Irfan Masih died tragically at the Umerkot Civil Hospital, after inhaling poisonous fumes. The doctors had refused to provide him treatment because he was considered ‘unclean’.
Most sanitary workers, escaping fatalities, suffer from skin diseases, asthma, tuberculosis, backaches and breathing problems. There is an urgent need to provide them medical cover by extending the social security scheme to the sanitary workers as well as to their families.
As it is, the overall compliance status of labour laws in the industrial and commercial establishments is deplorable. While some of the progressive employers do provide reasonable facilities and salaries to their employees, the majority do not even pay minimum wages and leave them at the mercy of contractors. The treatment meted out to sanitary workers in terms of payment of wages is even worse as most are paid lesser wages than the minimum of Rs. 17,500 p.m.
At present there are around 11,000 sanitary workers in Karachi, divided between the six districts of the Municipal Corporation and the Waste and Sewer Authority (WASA). Of these, there is a very small number of regular employees. The seniors among the regular workers get monthly wages of more than Rs. 20,000. All others are employed on a daily wage of Rs. 500, with no paid weekly rest day and vacations. The existing daily rate of minimum wage is Rs. 673. Those working for the municipal corporations lift garbage and clean the roads, while the ones engaged by WASA remove blockages from sewage lines.
While commenting on his wages, one sanitary worker said, “We are getting Rs. 15,000 p.m. out of which approximately Rs. 2,000 is taken by the inspectors of our contractors. If we refuse to pay the extortion money, we are told to leave the job”. The attitude of their employers towards them is inhuman; they ask them to work for extra hours without any overtime. The sanitary workers employed through the janitorial contractors in Defence Housing Authority and Clifton in Karachi, are paid wages ranging from Rs. 800 to Rs. 1,200 p.m.
In Islamabad, private sanitary workers collecting domestic waste from different sectors of the federal capital are employed on daily wages. According to them, they are being exploited by the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) contractors due to their uncertain and insecure job status. They complain about the poor working conditions and ruthless behaviour of the contractors.
In a 2013 survey, the World Watch Monitor noted that the representation of Christians in jobs of sweepers and other sanitation positions in major cities of Pakistan was disproportionately higher compared to their percentage in the population. They also noted that nearly 70 percent of the sanitation staff in Lahore were Christians, while in Karachi, they made up 80 percent of the staff.
An NGO called ‘Strengthening Participatory Organization’ (SPO), in collaboration with the Sindh Human Rights Commission (SHRC), has initiated a pilot project called “Promotion of Social Well-Being of Sanitary Workers”. It has quite ambitious goals and is strongly pursuing the Sindh government to regularize the services of sanitary workers and provide them all the benefits, especially those related to health and workmen’s compensation.
SPO has recently distributed around 250 safety kits to the sanitary workers to help them avoid horrible incidents while cleaning choked gutter lines. SPO has been contributing to humanitarian causes for the last 26 years and intends extending its projects to Lahore. It is financed by the Norwegian Church Association. More NGOs need to participate in such projects as it is our collective, social, political and national responsibility to contribute to the betterment of the neglected segments of society because they make us live comfortably at the cost of their own health - and even lives.
The writer is an industrial relations professional and also teaches at the IBA. He can be reached at |
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