The campaign was launched with the screening of a film highlighting the plight of the families of sanitation workers who died due to toxic fumes and gases in the sewers in Sargodha....
minorities
Highlighting the challenges faced by sanitation workers in occupational safety and employment security, recently, NCHR launched an awareness campaign on discrimination against Christian sanitary workers. In line with its mandate to address violations of human rights, the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), in collaboration with EU funded ‘Huqooq-e-Pakistan’ (HeP) project. The campaign was launched with the screening of a film highlighting the plight of the families of sanitation workers who died due to toxic fumes and gases in the sewers in Sargodha.
Speaking on this occasion, Chairperson Rabiya Javeri Agha said that in 2009, Pakistan introduced a quota of 5 per cent for minorities on all federal and provincial Government posts. As of 2021, there are a total of 29,692 vacant minority posts of different grades for recruitment across Pakistan. “Most distressingly, evidence shows that government organisations have tried to meet the requirement by advertising sanitation jobs and other low paying work as being exclusively for Christians or other ‘non-Muslims’. Even though Christians are 1.6 per cent of the population of Pakistan, they represent over 80 per cent of the sanitation workforce,” she informed.
Highlighting some other facts, she said that Christian sanitary workers are exploited and discriminated against in a myriad of ways. Instead of being employees of the Municipal Corporation, they are often classified as ‘daily wagers’, denying their basic labour rights. They are not given proper PPE or masks. In some reported cases, even once injured sanitation workers are taken to hospitals, doctors often refuse to treat them because they are ‘unclean’ and covered in filth.
NCHR Member Minority, Manzoor Masih, stressed for putting an end to unconstitutional and discriminatory advertisements. “We must fill the minority quota in government jobs across all grades, and we must ensure that we implement affirmative action the way it was meant to be implemented - as a tool to help uplift minority communities, not oppress them further.”
The event was attended by members from the civil society and professional from print, electronic and digital media.
– You! desk
