Research study on sanitary workers launched

LAHORE : The Pakistan Workers Federation has launched its study ‘Sanitary Workers in Lahore: A Socio-Legal Study’.

The research study is launched in collaboration with the Labour Research and Development Institute (LRDI), Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) under PRS/STRIDE.

The launch was co-hosted by the PWF and EFP and was attended by the management of LWMC, Wasa, Private employers and the government represented by the deputy secretary of Labour Rao Zahid Ahmed, ILO being represented by Razi Mujtaba Haider and 40 mainstream PWF leadership from all over Pakistan under the leadership of M Zahoor Awan, the veteran Labour leader of the sub-continent.

The research had highlighted that within the broader framework of Pakistani labour, sanitary workers occupy a particularly marginalised position. Lahore where the present study is situated is the second-largest metropolitan area in the country and the largest in the Punjab province. It has a rising population of over 11 million inhabitants, according to 2017 census figures, and houses the largest concentration of Pakistani Christians, who account for around 5pc of the City’s total population. Christians account for over 60pc of Lahore’s sanitary workforce, with Hindus in second place and a smaller proportion of Muslim workers.

The largest employers of sanitary workers in Lahore are the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) which employs around 2,240 sanitary workers, and the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC), which employs about 12,000 sanitary workers.

The number of sanitary workers employed by these contractors is likely much larger. The report is authored by Dr Azeem who is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law (SAHSOL) at LUMS University, Lahore, whose work can broadly be categorised into labour-based socio-legal research and international law from a developing country perspective.

The co-author of the report Umar Ali is a visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the Postgraduate Institute of Law, University of Lahore, where he teaches labour and human rights law to graduate students.