Source: Amnesty International –
Pakistan’s authorities must ensure robust protections for sanitation workers both in law and practice against institutionalized religious and caste-based discrimination, Amnesty International said in a new report highlighting widespread human rights violations within the sector.
“Cut Us Open and See That We Bleed Like Them”: Discrimination and Stigmatization of Sanitation Workers in Pakistan, documents how sanitation workers, belonging primarily to the so-called “lower-castes” and religious minorities, are subjected to discriminatory recruitment and working practices, based on caste and religion. This is compounded by job insecurity and dangerous working conditions due to an overall disregard for workers’ well-being and poor implementation of labour laws.
“The severely unjust treatment of sanitation workers in Pakistan constitutes not only social and economic marginalization, but also human rights violations under international law. They are often confined to this work by entrenched biases, yet the country’s legal system fails to address the issue of caste as a structural form of racial discrimination,” said Isabelle Lassée, Deputy Regional Director for South Asia at Amnesty International.
“It is crucial to urgently take concrete steps to strengthen Pakistan’s protections for sanitation workers and truly commit to ending caste and religion-based discrimination in the country.”
Amnesty International worked in collaboration with Pakistani human rights organization, the Center for Law & Justice (CLJ), engaging with more than 230 sanitation workers, including 66 respondents to a questionnaire to identify common concerns. The researchers also conducted focus group discussions and individual interviews to confirm widespread forms of discrimination and labour rights violations between February and September 2024 in Lahore, Bahawalpur, Karachi, Umerkot, Islamabad and Peshawar.
The severely unjust treatment of sanitation workers in Pakistan constitutes not only social and economic marginalization, but also human rights violations under international law.
Isabelle Lassée, Deputy Regional Director for South Asia at Amnesty International