TWO sanitation workers, 17-year-old Vanesh and 35-year-old Ramesh, tragically died while cleaning an underground tank at a building in Bhimpura, Karachi, on Sept 10. These deaths occurred exactly in the same manner and for exactly the same reason as the deaths that occur week after week in the sewage gutters of Pakistan. Cruelly exploited sanitation workers, compelled by poverty, are made to enter raw gutters to clean faecal matter with their bare hands, under barbaric and inhumane conditions. Some never come out alive. Those who make it back to the surface emerge with bruises, cuts and wounds with the filth having permeated not just their bodies, but their entire existence.

More than two dozen sanitation workers have died in sewage gutters across Pakistan this year. They were unknown privately contracted individuals, not listed as employees of any organisation. No individual or organisation was held accountable for gross criminal negligence. The families of the deceased were silenced by giving a few thousand rupees to sign a certificate that they shall not pursue any legal action. The unconcerned state looked the other way, as if nothing ever happened. There were no........

© Dawn