The shine and cleanliness of our cities exist solely because of the labour of sanitation workers. The scraps they collect are sold for a few coins—and those coins become the fuel that keeps their stoves burning. These half-starved labourers seldom protest, yet exploitation continues relentlessly.
Shafi Naqeeb
In the dim hours before dawn, when I see people carrying garbage, filth, and human waste on their heads just to earn a living, a thought rises involuntarily from the depths of my heart: these are the people who are truly “great”. Perhaps it was for people like them that George Bernard Shaw once remarked: “It is a curious injustice that those who do the hardest and dirtiest work receive the least wages, while those whose work is easy are paid far more. And the most receive the most who do no work at all.”
The world today appears sharply divided into two classes: those considered “important” and those condemned to spend their lives serving them. This class divide has sunk so deeply into the structure of human society that exploitation now stains nearly every corner of civilisation, leaving the human spirit bruised and diminished.
A person’s greatness does not lie in his profession, but in his sense of responsibility, honesty, and service. We proudly claim that humanity has advanced, conquered distances, touched the stars, and compressed the world into the palm of a hand. Yet beneath this dazzling image of progress lies a bitter truth: human beings have gradually lost the ability to value one another.
Even today, millions survive by cleaning filthy drains, sweeping streets, collecting garbage and waste from each household, bending endlessly in fields under the scorching sun, or breaking stones to build the luxuries enjoyed by others. Happiness rarely visits their homes. A full meal and a peaceful night’s sleep often remain distant dreams.
Take sanitation workers, for example. The shine and cleanliness of our cities exist solely because of their labour. If they stop working for even a single day, mountains of garbage would choke our streets and make breathing difficult. The scraps they collect—plastic, waste paper, discarded metal, and polythene are sold for a few coins, and those coins become the fuel that keeps their stoves burning. These half-starved labourers seldom protest, yet exploitation continues relentlessly.
What is even more tragic is that despite living in the twenty-first century, many of these workers still have no access to healthcare, safety equipment, social security, or legal protection. According to recent international labour estimates, more than two billion people worldwide still work in the informal sector without proper contracts, insurance, pensions, or workplace protections. Across developing nations, sanitation workers and manual labourers remain among the most vulnerable communities, frequently exposed to toxic waste, dangerous chemicals, infectious diseases, and hazardous working conditions.
In many regions, manual scavenging and unsafe waste handling still continue despite legal bans and repeated promises of reform. Countless workers lose their lives each year while cleaning sewers, septic tanks, factories, mines, and construction sites. Yet their deaths rarely become headlines.
The condition of brick kiln workers in our own region is equally heartbreaking. Their lives are often so miserable that calling them “human beings” sometimes feels like a painful irony. They live on barren lands without clean drinking water, proper sanitation, electricity, or medical care. Their children grow up surrounded by smoke, dust, hunger, and hopelessness.
For many among them, alcohol, gambling, and substance abuse become temporary escapes from endless suffering. Around these settlements, moral decay, crime, child labour, trafficking, and exploitation quietly flourish while society watches in silence.
At the same time, traditional local labour and craftsmanship are gradually disappearing. Carpenters, barbers, artisans, and skilled manual workers are becoming rare. Migrant workers have filled this vacuum, but along with economic dependence, new social and environmental challenges have also emerged. Overcrowding, unregulated labour systems, rising crime in some areas, and the weakening of social values have become growing concerns.
The solution, however, is not to stop labourers from coming or working. The solution is to establish a just and transparent system that protects their rights while ensuring accountability and social harmony. Brick kilns, factories, and industrial zones must be legally required to provide schools, healthcare centres, sanitation facilities, clean drinking water, and worker registration systems. Security, monitoring, and labour welfare mechanisms are no longer optional; they are essential.
We must also revive the idea of a true welfare state—one that gives workers not merely the right to survive, but the right to live with dignity.
For this, several urgent measures are necessary: Comprehensive insurance and social security schemes for sanitation workers, labourers, and brick kiln workers, and informal-sector employees. Low-interest bank loans so workers can build small businesses or secure housing. Free healthcare, medical checkups, vaccination drives, and dedicated health clinics for labour communities.Affordable and safe housing projects supported by the state
Official registration of slums and labour colonies, with access to clean water, roads, communication services, and emergency medical facilities.Free school uniforms, nutrition programs, and simplified educational access for workers’ children.
Subsidised or free travel in public transport systems.Priority allocation of small business spaces and employment opportunities.Strict labour laws ensuring workplace safety, fair wages, maternity protection, and protection against bonded labour and child exploitation
These are not acts of charity. They are the rightful claims of people who have spent generations carrying society on their shoulders.
Families of workers who die in industrial accidents must receive guaranteed financial compensation, educational support for their children, and assistance for dependent family members. Factory owners, contractors, industries, and governments must all share legal responsibility for worker welfare instead of treating labourers as disposable tools.
Climate change has further worsened the suffering of these communities. Heat waves, floods, polluted air, and unsafe urban expansion disproportionately affect the poor and working class. While wealthy societies discuss sustainability in conferences, the poor inhale toxic smoke, work under unbearable temperatures, and risk their lives in collapsing buildings and hazardous environments.
Modern civilisation proudly celebrates technology, artificial intelligence, and economic growth. Yet the moral worth of any society is ultimately measured not by its skyscrapers, but by how it treats the people who clean its streets, build its homes, harvest its food, and carry its burdens.
The truth is simple: these people may appear “small” to us, but in reality, they give far more than they receive. They are our foundation, our support system, and the invisible strength upon which our entire social order stands.
Without them, our cities would collapse, our industries would stop, our homes would remain unfinished, and our comfort would disappear.
If humanity truly seeks progress, then the welfare and dignity of workers must become a collective moral responsibility. Because if they cease to exist, neither will we.
The writer is a columnist
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