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The Sindh High Court (SHC) has directed a provincial law officer to seek instructions from the provincial government with regard to protection of all sanitation workers in the province and prohibition of manual scavenging by the sanitation workers.
The direction came on a petition seeking the protection of all sanitation workers in the province.
Arif Hasan and other petitioners had said that the practice of manual scavenging by sanitation workers entering the raw sewage gutters persisted. Moreover, they had added, private persons were also hired to clean the manholes by entering the gutters, compromising their safety and health.
They had said that sanitation workers were routinely compelled to enter hazardous sewage gutters without protective equipment, exposing themselves to poisonous gases, toxic substances and life-threatening conditions that frequently resulted in serious injury or death.
Despite the availability of modern mechanical technology capable of eliminating the need of manual scavenging, the government authorities had failed to prohibit this dangerous and inhumane practice, the petitioners had maintained.
They had also said that sanitation workers, many of whom belonged to marginalised and religious minority communities, were often hired on daily wages or informal arrangements and required to manually clean sewage lines with bare hands and without safety gear.
They had highlighted several tragic incidents in Karachi, Hyderabad, Port Qasim and Tando Mohammad Khan, where sanitation workers lost their lives while cleaning gutters and sewerage drains.
They had also referred to the incident that had occurred in Karachi’s Usmanabad where George Masih and two other teenaged sanitation workers died after entering a gutter filled with poisonous gases.
They had said the Karachi Water & Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) and other authorities directed sanitation workers to manually clear the blocked gutters without any safety equipment or rescue mechanism. No criminal proceedings or investigations were initiated after such incidents, while the families of the deceased were informally compensated to avoid accountability, they had added.
They had also said that international bodies discouraged manual scavenging as well and required the use of mechanical cleaning methods and strict safety protocols.
The KWSC and other authorities were under legal and constitutional obligations to ensure safe sanitation practices and to protect sanitation workers from hazardous employment conditions, the petitioners had argued.
They had requested the high court to declare the practice of entering the gutters and sewerage drains without safety kits a violation of fundamental rights, and direct the government to adopt policies that protected the fundamental rights of all sanitation workers, including their right to work in safe conditions.
A provincial law officer sought further time to obtain instructions from the government with regard to the issues raised in the petition.
A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Adnanul Karim Memon directed the law officer to file comments on the petition within two weeks.
