KARACHI: Late on a humid Sunday night earlier this month, four sanitation workers left their small homes in United Colony, a predominantly Christian neighborhood in Karachi’s Saddar Town, to do what they had done countless times before: descend into the city’s underbelly to clear blocked drains.
By dawn, three of them were dead.
The victims — George Masih, 43, his 16-year-old son Vishal, and their 18-year-old relative Sahil Khurshid — collapsed one after another inside a sewer filled with poisonous gas.
Only Sahil’s younger brother, 14-year-old Raza, survived to tell the story.
“They said they had some work to do, something about going to the hole. I didn’t know they meant a gutter,” Maryam Ruqaiya, Sahil’s mother, said, recalling the deadly incident that unfolded in the early hours of September 22.
The deaths have once again thrust a harsh spotlight on Pakistan’s reliance on manual scavenging, the hazardous and degrading work of physically cleaning sewers and drains, still largely performed by members of marginalized communities like Christians.
“First, George went in. Then Sahil. And after Sahil, Vishal,” Ruqaiya said as she stood at the gate where she had once waited for her son to return from work.
Her younger son Raza, she said, was screaming helplessly as one man after another collapsed inside the sewer.
“He was screaming, ‘Save them! Save them! Save them!’” she said.
Raza’s own account is seared with trauma.
“We cleaned six manholes. At the seventh, George went down. He shouted, ‘I can’t breathe, the gas has got me. Pull me up,’” Raza recalled, pointing to the manhole in Usmanabad where it happened.
“We started pulling him out, but the rope snapped. He fell back in.”
Panicked, Sahil and Vishal rushed in one after the other to rescue George. They too were overcome by the toxic fumes.
“I started crying, screaming,” Raza said. “No one came to help. Only one man arrived, but by then, it was too late.”
“INDIGNITY AND INHUMANITY”
In Pakistan, most sanitation workers are Christians. They are often sent into toxic drains without protective gear, a practice human rights advocates say amounts to state-sanctioned homicide.
“I’ve gone into drains as deep as 25 feet, even into fully clogged ones,” said Shamoon Masih, a sanitation worker with 14 years of experience. “You have to hold your breath when you go in, but you can only do it for about a minute.”
Naeem Sadiq, an industrial engineer and activist who has campaigned for decades to end manual scavenging, said about 30 workers die each year in Karachi alone and around 100 across Pakistan, though the real toll is likely higher due to underreporting.
“It is a process in which one is almost certain to die. If you survive, you are lucky,” Sadiq told Arab News, citing poisonous gases, chemical exposure and powerful water currents as the primary risks. “If your foot slips, you die.”
While many countries have outlawed the manual cleaning of sewers, Pakistan continues to rely on human entry, sometimes even when machines are available.
“These are ceremonial machines since they stand on the sides and these people are put into the sewage gutters,” Sadiq said. “This is not only a mistake of the government, but [this amounts to] first-degree murder.”
Authorities have offered the families of the three victims Rs800,000, about $2,900, in total compensation.
But Sadiq argued that payouts miss the point.
“The issue is not about compensation,” he said. “It relates to why we still send our people into the depths of the gutters, into indignity and inhumanity, kill them there and then remain silent before doing the same thing again next week?”
Sadiq and other activists plan to file a public interest litigation seeking a nationwide ban on manual scavenging, similar to one imposed by the Supreme Court of India.
SLOW REFORM
Officials acknowledge the dangers of manual scavenging but point to structural barriers that make reform difficult.
“This work falls under the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC), and it depends on the area-wise jurisdiction,” said Daniyal Sial, spokesperson for the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.
“Whoever is found responsible, an inquiry is conducted first. After that, whatever action is required, either by the government or by the concerned department, is certainly taken.”
Sial said overlapping jurisdictions among more than 30 civic agencies and crumbling sewerage infrastructure have slowed change. He added that the KWSC, with World Bank support, is expanding its fleet of suction vehicles to reduce reliance on manual labor.
“Hopefully, within the year, we’ll begin to see concrete results,” he said.
For families like Ruqaiya’s, such promises offer little solace. Her son Sahil had been her only source of income and support. He constantly worried about her heart condition and whether she had enough money for medication.
“He used to say, ‘You have heart disease. Your medication is running out,’” she recalled. “Now what will I do?”
George also leaves behind a young son and three daughters.
“Not even one is left,” Ruqaiya said of the three men who died. “We just want justice.”
