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GEORGE Masih had unclogged six completely choked raw sewage gutters with his bare hands. Working since 1 am, he was tired and felt increasingly dizzy. He gasped for every breath and stalled with every step, as he crawled out from each death trap. By now his lungs were bloated with poisonous gases and his body soaked in layers of disease, excreta and indignity. Forced once more into yet another blocked gutter, George’s frail, half-dead body could endure no longer. This pit would be his last descent, his final humiliation at the hands of a merciless society. Connected to nothingness with the life above, neither a flimsy rope nor a hazy hope, he collapsed into the poisoned void — never to rise again. His son Vishaal jumped into the gutter in desperation to save him, but the choking fumes were even quicker to consume the 17-year-old lad. Moments later, 16-year-old Sahil (another close relative), rushed to help, only to be swallowed by the same fatal darkness.
It has been claimed that some officials were present at the site where helpless sanitation workers were being asphyxiated to death every few minutes. Equipped with two gutter-cleaning ceremonial vehicles (about Rs30 million each), they appeared to have been indifferent onlookers. Did they feel no remorse or responsibility to provide safety equipment, to restrain the process or to recover the dead bodies — a task performed many hours later by Edhi’s men?
The 2024 annual report by Citizens’ Commission for Equality and Human Rights stated that “95 per cent work of gutter cleaning in Pakistan continues to be performed by sanitation workers entering the raw sewage gutters and undertaking manual scavenging. The work is carried out with bare hands using no safety equipment or precautions whatsoever, leaving them defenceless against lethal infections, open wounds, crippling illnesses and instant death. It is estimated that about 100 workers die in sewage gutters every year in Pakistan”. It is ironic that the handful of expensive machines owned by some organisations stand unused as showpieces, while the humiliating task of scavenging is still manually performed by the oppressed and the voiceless workers.
We have suffocated them in the darkest and filthiest depths.
We spent 78 long years bestowing fortunes and ‘Fortuners’ to our bureaucrats, while inflicting immense inhumanity, injustice and cruelty on our sanitation workers. We have choked, suffocated and killed them in the darkest and filthiest depths of raw sewage gutters. No collective apology from the state and its 250 million citizens can mitigate this utterly barbaric crime. Perhaps the only compensation is to make a completely new and humane beginning, not by speeches, but by taking a number of practical steps. Begin by immediate legislation that outright bans all manual scavenging and human entry into sewers. India’s supreme court made manual scavenging unconstitutional. Why cannot the parliament of Pakistan pass the relevant laws to protect sanitation workers here?
Next, completely replace manual scavenging and sewer entry by deploying locally fabricated machines designed for jetting, rodding, suction or grabbing functions. If a bunch of volunteer citizens could develop such a machine (called ‘Bhalai’), at one-tenth the cost of a ‘Fortuner’, there would certainly be scores of others who could do a much better job.
Third, make sanitation work an equal opportunity employment, where at least 50pc workers are Muslims. The salary of sanitation workers must be twice the minimum wage, ie, Rs80,000 per month as of 2025. Giving them proper uniform, duty hours, safety equipment, EOBI and social security would incentivise this profession and raise their respect and importance in society. All sanitation workers employed for sewage duties in Pakistan must be full-time employees of government organisations and not contracted or privately engaged workers.
Finally, apply the universally recognised principle that health and safety are the responsibility of the top management and hold those in the highest position of authority personally accountable for any injury or accident.
Three days after the gruesome sewer accident, the three dead bodies had still not been buried, no postmortem had been carried out, no investigation ordered, and no FIR lodged. The state, it seemed, had closed the subject by quietly distributing a paltry sum to the victims’ families — already paralysed with poverty, pain and shock. The state made sure there was never a lawsuit against its own criminally negligent officials and that the gut-wrenching oppression will continue for the next 78 years.
The writer is an industrial engineer and a volunteer social activist.
Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2025
