Regularisation of jobs of sanitation workers sought.

Byline: Faiza Ilyas

KARACHI -- Highlighting the plight of sanitation workers, rights activists at a press conference held on Thursday demanded that the government regularise their jobs, grant them facilities that were given to employees of government departments and ensure that they were provided with safety kit at work.

They also called for an end to discrimination they frequently faced at the place of their employment and society's derogatory attitude towards them.

'Sanitation workers deliver vital services in society. Unfortunately, however, neither society nor the government is willing to treat them with respect and address their issues affecting their life and families for decades,' said Shafiq Ghori, president of the Sindh Labour Federation.

Explaining these problems, he said sanitation workers worked on contractual basis and, therefore, remained deprived of key fundamental rights, for instance, the right to medical facility or health insurance - which could provide some monetary support to families, especially whose loved ones die or suffer injury while cleaning sewers.

Activists call for end to discrimination against such workers

'Sanitation workers are very vulnerable to death, injury and illness as they work in degraded environmental conditions, at times toxic. The local media has recently reported death of some sanitation workers in Umerkot, Hyderabad and Karachi,' he said.

Injustice in govt depts

The speakers referred to the National Sanitation Policy 2016 and Sindh Sanitation Policy 2017 which, they said had no mention of sanitation workers who otherwise were the main stakeholders in this sector.

They urged the government to take representatives of sanitation workers on board before designing such policy documents, incorporate their concerns to avoid any gaps in a policy that ensured protection of their rights.

They also spoke of injustices at government institutions and said sanitation workers in union councils, town municipal administrations, district councils and municipal corporations had been working without regularisation for 20 years.

'They are being deprived of wages as prescribed in the government rules and are being paid Rs14,000 or less against Rs17,500 set as the minimum wage for...