Report highlights plight of Pakistani Christian sanitation employees

Amnesty International has highlighted the plight of sanitation employees in Pakistan, a lot of whom are Christian and face discrimination due to their caste or religious status.

Plenty of the sanitation employees in Pakistan are Christians or Hindus from lower castes. Data from five government agencies in Punjab showed that Christians were disproportionately employed in lower grade jobs and specifically in sanitation positions.

Many reported being called derogatory names as a matter in fact they usually were often the victims of public segregation, particularly in matters related to food and eating utensils.

Quite a few sanitation employees told Amnesty that they were only of their current job due to discriminatory employment practices stopping them from finding alternative work.

One man claimed that he applied for a job as an electrician, but after the interviewers discovered he was a Christian, would only offer him sanitation work.

“Once they know you might be Christian, the one work they provide is sanitation,” he said. Lacking any alternative, he accepted sanitation work.

Even throughout the industry Christians face further discrimination. One female Christian sanitation employee said, “Christian women clean toilets and wash clothes, whereas Muslim women work within the kitchen.” 

As if being in such a situation weren’t bad enough, many live with the constant prospect of bankruptcy at any moment, with a majority of sanitation employees (56 per cent) not in everlasting arrangements and an identical number (55 per cent) having no written contract. Workplace protections and other advantages are also a fantasy for many.

Over half (55 per cent) of sanitation employees said they lacked proper safety equipment, with some telling stories of hand injuries because of broken glass and acid from sewage. In one case a person needed to have his finger amputated after pricking it on a grimy syringe.

International human rights lawyer, Isabelle Lassée, said of the situation, “In Pakistan, labour law violations run parallel to and reinforce the discrimination and marginalization faced by sanitation employees.

“Amnesty International calls for a holistic, human rights-based approach that mixes anti-discrimination practices with enforcement of labour laws to handle the historical, social and economic harms experienced by sanitation employees in Pakistan.”