IT is disheartening to see how inconsequential some lives are to society. This Monday, four Lahore labourers died from inhalation of toxic fumes after entering a manhole for a clean-up job. It took nine hours for rescue workers to retrieve their bodies. Their deaths received barely a few sentences in the press. Two days earlier, in Karachi, three out of four sanitation workers tasked with cleaning a drain lost their lives in similar circumstances. The group had been working well past 1am. “One of the workers lost consciousness while cleaning, [and] two [other] workers entered the manhole to pull him out, but both fell unconscious later,” police said. About a day before that incident, three sanitation workers died of asphyxiation in Faisalabad. A week earlier, two others had been killed by toxic gases in Karachi.

At least a dozen sanitation workers dead in a fortnight, yet not an ounce of outrage in the media. This is how expendable this particular class of labour is for society. It raises the disturbing question of whether they are perhaps seen as less human merely because they do the ‘dirty’ jobs, or because they mostly comprise our most socially vulnerable. Whatever the case may be, we must not expect them to risk life and limb to clean up after us, without even expecting an iota of gratitude in return, let alone protective gear, a pension, health coverage, or job security in any form. They cannot merely be “a body made disposable by the city it serves”, in the words of the chairperson of the National Commission for Human Rights. Given the critical services sanitation workers provide, the state has a duty to guarantee them protective equipment, health cover and secure employment. Citizens, particularly from privileged segments who can get themselves heard, must abandon their indifference and raise their voices. To treat these workers as disposable is to betray our own humanity.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2025