ISLAMABAD: Residents of slum areas, locally known as ‘katchi abadis’ in the capital city have demanded of the authorities concerned to sensitise their areas against the COVID-19 outbreak besides providing safety kits to the workers performing sanitation duties across the country.
Slums areas require extra precautionary measures due to peculiar conditions and specific steps for the dwellers with high exposure to unhygienic and untidy places.
Generally, the dwellers, engaged as sanitary workers or janitors at various places, have high exposure due to being in dirty spaces and come in contact with waste, so specific steps are required to ensure their overall safety.
“Most people of our community lift garbage and work in hospitals or homes which makes us vulnerable,” said Ilyas Maseeh, a resident of G-7 Katchi Abadi which houses for more than 200 under privileged families.
Ilyas, who himself works as a sanitary worker at the Metropolitan Corporation of Islamabad (MCI), said that a large number of his slum had been performing sanitation duties without any safety measures at all.
“Our community is at high risk due to less awareness and non-availability of protective equipment,” he said while urging the city managers to disinfect the capital’s slums at the earliest.
Another sanitary worker, lifting garbage from trash-trollies of G-6 sector, said he had to purchase masks and gloves on his own to ensure personal safety.
A non-governmental organisation, Interfaith League Against Poverty (ILAP), also raised the concern and called for taking urgent steps to protect people living in slums.
ILAP President Sajid Ishaq told APP that currently, some 60,000 people were residing in 11 permanent and temporary slums of multiple sectors.
He underlined the need for sensitisation of the slum community against the COVID-19 and provision of safety kits to the workers, performing sanitation duties across the country.
Sajid pointed out that report of coronavirus case in Remsha Colony Islamabad, may be taken seriously by the authorities. “Less care of these people may undermine the efforts of government departments who have been fighting this virus,” he added.
Joint Christian Action Committee (JCAC) President Basharat Khokhar said that after the medical and paramedical staff, sanitary workers were performing the duties on the forefront against the COVID-19. “The city’s cleanliness would be ensured if they stayed healthy,” he added.
He said at present, there were some 1,200 permanent sanitary workers of the MCI while some 800 were working under the contractors.
Basharat said temporary sanitary workers should be given health risk allowance.
