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Frontline Christian Sanitation Workers in Pakistan Face Discrimination

As is too often the case, frontline workers who do vital but little appreciated work play critical roles during the COVID-19 crisis. Their wages are low and paid erratically, and they have minimal protection against infection. Reports from Pakistan indicate that there is little appreciation for their contribution, and indeed, given fears of infection because they are exposed to risky situations, patterns of discrimination have become worse.
 
Poor treatment of many sanitation workers takes different forms, and because of the overlap of religious identity and labor status, it affects Christians harshly. Christians make up about 2 percent of Pakistan’s population but around 75 to 80 percent of sanitation workers – sweepers, janitors, sewage cleaners, and other such jobs. Pakistan officially denies that the Hindu caste-based system has persisted after Partition in 1947, when Pakistan and India separated. However, hundreds of thousands of untouchables had converted to Christianity before Pakistan became independent. Unofficially, the caste-based stigma remains, synonymous with Christians, because over 90 percent of Christians in the country come from what was the Dalit caste, the poorest of the poor.
 
One worker commented, “Social distancing is nothing new to us. People usually hate the sight of a sanitation worker, let alone coming close, shaking our hand, or eating and drinking with us…. Some believe we are born for this dirty sanitation and cleaning work and scornfully call us ‘chuhra’ (a modern equivalent might be ‘toilet cleaner’). Others hate us, believing we do a dirty work; so they keep at a safe distance.”

(Based on: May 28, 2020, Institute of Development Studies article.)