In Pakistan, sanitation workers, overwhelmingly from marginalized Christian and Hindu Dalit communities, face systemic discrimination, hazardous working conditions, and severe social stigmatization, all while being denied basic legal protections. A new report by Amnesty International, in collaboration with the Center for Law & Justice (CLJ), exposes how these workers endure caste-based oppression, economic exploitation, and dangerous labor practices, with little recourse to justice.

From verbal abuse and job insecurity to life-threatening health risks, the findings reveal a cycle of abuse rooted in deep-seated prejudice and institutional neglect. Despite Pakistan’s constitutional guarantees of equality, authorities have failed to address this crisis, leaving thousands trapped in degrading and deadly work. This is not just a labor rights issue, it’s a glaring human rights violation demanding urgent action.

Pakistan’s authorities must ensure robust protections for sanitation workers both in law and practice against institutionalized religious and caste-based discrimination, Amnesty International said in a new report highlighting widespread human rights violations within the sector. “Cut Us Open and See That We Bleed Like Them”: Discrimination and Stigmatization of Sanitation Workers in Pakistan, documents how sanitation workers, belonging primarily to the so-called “lower-castes” and religious minorities, are subjected to discriminatory recruitment and working practices. This is compounded by job insecurity and dangerous working conditions due to an overall disregard for workers’ well-being and poor implementation of labour laws.

“The severely unjust treatment of sanitation workers in Pakistan constitutes not only social and economic marginalization, but also human rights violations under international law. They are often confined to this work by entrenched biases, yet the country’s legal system fails to address the issue of caste as a structural form of racial discrimination,” said Isabelle Lassée, Deputy Regional Director for South Asia at Amnesty International. "It is crucial to urgently take concrete steps to strengthen Pakistan's protections for sanitation workers and truly commit to ending caste and religion-based discrimination in the country." Amnesty International worked in collaboration with Pakistani human rights organization, the Center for Law & Justice (CLJ), engaging with more than 230 sanitation workers, including 66 respondents to a questionnaire to identify common concerns. The researchers also conducted focus group discussions and individual interviews to confirm widespread forms of discrimination and labour rights violations between February and September 2024 in Lahore, Bahawalpur, Karachi, Umerkot, Islamabad and Peshawar.

'People do not see us with respect'

Sanitation work is stigmatized because of its status as a traditional caste-designated occupation, largely associated with religious minorities, including so-called “lower-caste” Christians and Hindus.

Amnesty International found that 44% of the questionnaire respondents experienced stigmatization because of their profession and reported being called derogatory names such as “chuhra” (historic name of a Dalit caste), “bhangi” (another term for chuhra), “jamadar” (janitor in Urdu) and “issai” (used as a derogatory term for Christian) and even “dog”. Many reported that they regularly faced discrimination in public places, including segregation in food and eating utensils.

“Once they know you are Christian, the only work they offer is sanitation.” Fifty-five per cent of respondents recognized their caste/religious identity as a defining aspect of discriminatory recruitment and hiring practices. A man from Bahawalpur described how he had interviewed for an electrician position, but when the recruiters found out he was Christian, they only offered him sanitation work. He ended up accepting the job because he needed an income to support his family. Disaggregated staff data from five government agencies in Punjab reinforced these testimonies, finding that Christians were disproportionately employed not only in lower grades but also specifically in sanitation positions. Further, the research found that women sanitation workers faced a clear gender pay gap and were more likely to work in the informal sector, with non-Muslim women assigned “less clean” tasks. A woman sanitation worker in Karachi said, “Christian women clean toilets and wash clothes, whereas Muslim women work in the kitchen.”

Unable to refuse unsafe, precarious work

The research found it to be a common practice to avoid the regularization of sanitation workers’ employment and thereby deny them job security, benefits, and other legal protections. Only 44% of respondents were permanent and 45% lacked written contracts, to help evade requirements for worker regularization. A sanitation worker from Umerkot reported that, despite working in the Municipal Committee for 18 years, he was never regularized and had been working as a daily-wage worker throughout his employment. Employment status resulted in various disparities, with 79% of respondents having never been paid for overtime work and 53% receiving below the minimum wage (USD 115 per month). Sanitation workers were also found to be inadequately protected by social security and welfare schemes.

Appropriate safety equipment was not always provided to the workers, with 55% stating that they had developed health issues due to their work. These ranged from allergies, breathing issues and chronic coughs due to exposure to dust or picking up trash without gloves. Masks and some PPE were provided during the Covid-19 pandemic, but this practice has ceased according to several workers we spoke to for this report. A male worker from Peshawar said that workers lacking gloves frequently suffered skin burns due to acids released from sewage lines and hand injuries due to discarded glass.

Another worker, from Islamabad, had a finger amputated after pricking it on a syringe while handling waste without gloves. Despite the risks, about 70% of the respondents said they could not refuse work even when they felt that it was dangerous. This fear is against the backdrop of a pervasive atmosphere of job insecurity, given their temporary employment status and lack of due process with respect to job terminations. Seventy-six per cent of respondents stated that they feared sudden job termination.

Failed by the law

Pakistan lacks an anti-discrimination law in breach of its obligations under a number of relevant international UN human rights and ILO conventions nor does Article 25 of Pakistan’s Constitution, which sets out the right to non-discrimination, mention caste as a non-permitted ground. Pakistan’s labour laws are scattered across a patchwork of acts and ordinances, and vary according to each province since 2010, when labour became a provincial matter. Very few of these laws mention sanitation work specifically and when they do, they only refer to some parts of sanitation work or fail to cover temporary and daily-wage workers, despite them representing a significant proportion of the sanitation labour force. Consequently, there is an urgent need to review all these acts, ordinances and regulations to remove ambiguities and loopholes that exclude sanitation workers. The Pakistani government must pass legislation recognizing caste-based discrimination, in line with the country’s international human rights obligations. It must also ensure an end to discriminatory recruitment practices for sanitation work and conduct a thorough review and amendment of labour laws to address the issues of safety, mistreatment and discrimination. “In Pakistan, labour law violations run parallel to and reinforce the discrimination and marginalization faced by sanitation workers. Amnesty International calls for a holistic, human rights-based approach that combines anti-discrimination practices with enforcement of labour laws to address the historical, social and economic harms experienced by sanitation workers in Pakistan,” said Isabelle Lassée.