Every morning, before most of Faisalabad has properly begun its day, the city’s sanitation workers are up and working. The streets need to be cleaned. Waste should be collected. Drains need to be cleared. Somebody has to do the work that lets all the other people live in a clean city. But the people who do it are often only noticed when something goes wrong. Christian communities have been intimately associated with sanitation work in Punjab for generations. This association is especially visible in Faisalabad. But behind the familiar image of the municipal sweeper is a less familiar story, one of education, income, housing, discrimination and the hard distance between improving one's economic circumstances and changing one's social position.
A recent study on Christian Punjabi sweepers in Faisalabad provides some useful insights into that distance. For the study 150 Christian Punjabi sweepers working in Madina Town and Chak Jhumra were interviewed. The study finds that the Christian Punjabi sweeper community is not as distant as it used to be a couple of decades back. The improvements were recorded in terms of housing, income, and education for the Christian Punjabi sweeper community. However, the distance in terms of social status for Christian Punjabi sweepers has not reduced significantly.
In other words, Christian Punjabi sweepers have improved their status, but not the distance. Same occupation, same house for Christian Punjabi sweepers is the main finding of the study which escapes the notice of many, particularly those not interested in Christian Punjabi sweepers. For instance, the respondents’ fathers who were mostly uneducated (98 percent) had no schooling at all. However, most Christian Punjabi sweeper respondents (50 percent) managed to receive education. Besides the educational improvements, the respondents also posted better economic status than their fathers. For instance, the study records that 58.7 percent of the respondents’ fathers earned below Rs3,000. By contrast, most Christian Punjabi sweeper respondents (38.7 percent) belonged to the Rs6,000-Rs8,999 income bracket used in the survey. The study also reveals that the respondents enjoy better housing conditions than their fathers who mostly lived in rented accommodations. In fact, most respondents (96.7 percent) live in pucca houses compared to 71.3 percent of their fathers in mixed houses.
These are not small changes. They show that the story of the Christian sanitation workers of Faisalabad is not merely one of poverty. The economy has moved ahead. Families have bought homes. Children are better educated than their parents. Except for the awkward part. The occupation itself has shown surprising resilience. The study found that majority of the respondents’ fathers were sweepers while 44pc of fathers were engaged in latrine cleaning. 62.7pc of respondents were street sweepers. This is mobility, but it is mostly horizontal mobility, movement from one form of sanitation work to another, rather than movement out of the occupational hierarchy altogether. But mostly within the family, the broom has been passed.
This aspiration is not limited to the sweepers of Faisalabad. Research by Gazdar and Mallah in Faisalabad found Christian municipal workers frequently wanted their children to escape sanitation work. “I have children in school, I want them to get ‘respectful jobs’,” said Rashid Iqbal, a Christian worker who inherited a permanent municipal job from his deceased father. Another worker, Shahzad, also wanted his children to finish their education and get cleaner and more respectable jobs. The import of such statements is easy to overlook. The worker may prize the security of a municipal job and yet hope that his children will never have to depend on the same occupation. That apparent contradiction is at the core of the problem. The job could offer stability. It could give a pension. It may enable a family to purchase a home. It may even provide a side income opportunity. But social respect is another thing altogether.
Security on one side, stigma on the other side. The Faisalabad study also revealed that 68 per cent of respondents had other jobs, indicating that employment in sanitation alone was not always seen as enough to meet the economic needs of households. At the same time, pension was the most important source of satisfaction with the occupation and was mentioned by 51.3pc of the respondents. That’s the paradox.
The work may be economically rewarding but socially degrading. The worker needs the job, but not necessarily the identity that comes with the job. "A major source of dissatisfaction was lack of respect and the feeling that “people hate us” among 49.3pc of those questioned, the research found. A further 25.3pc suggested disease and the same proportion lack of prestige. The figures are even more telling when asked about discrimination. Seventy-eight percent said they experienced discrimination in society to a great extent. Just 2pc said they were not discriminated against on the basis of their occupation. And that's where social acceptance seems to be the gate where economic mobility stops. A family can leave the rented house and get their own house. A child may receive more education than the parent. He can make more than his father made. But the label for the occupation can remain the same. The word which is harder to escape. There are words that describe a job. Then there are words that make a man an occupation. The study focused on the experiences of respondents of being called “Churha”, a name historically associated with sanitation work and used as an insult. The response was striking: 68pc said it made them feel isolated, 32pc said it made them feel helpless. That finding helps to explain why the question of mobility cannot be reduced to a matter of income. If a person is earning more but is still socially marked by the occupation of his parents, has the family really moved? That is the question that lies behind the statistics.
Education is helping, but it cannot work on its own. The research also revealed a link between education and the perception of barriers to mobility. The chi square test employed in the study rejected the null hypothesis and indicated a significant relationship between the educational level and perception of barriers to social mobility by the respondents. A similar relation was found for education and feelings of guilt about the occupation. This reveals something important. Education can alter the way people perceive their situation. To a person with little schooling, sanitation work may be regarded as merely the family occupation. Someone who has been in education longer may begin to notice the alternatives that are out there, and the barriers to accessing them. That’s not to say education has been a failure. On the other hand. It means that education can generate aspirations quicker than the labor market can generate opportunities.
They are still needed by the city. The ironic part here is awkward. The people whose work is socially despised are what the city cannot do without. Faisalabad is not possible without sanitation workers. The same city that relies on their labor can simultaneously deny them the social status associated with other kinds of work.
Contemporary news reports and efforts to support rights have continuously focused on the dangers faced by workers in the sanitation sector in Pakistan Christian workers who do jobs related to sewers and garbage. In 2025 the Islamabad High Court told officials to take steps to protect workers who clean sewers. People who fight for rights have again asked for machines to do the cleaning of people. The main question is whether it is right for sanitation workers to have this job.. Should sanitation workers be forced to take this job along with the shame and the dangers just because their parents had the same job? The real impact of moving up in life was shown in the Faisalabad study. The study shows that the people involved have money and education, than their fathers. This shows that sweepers are not a group that is left behind.
I have seen living conditions improve and jobs shift within the sanitation sector.. The study shows people have not reached vertical social mobility. That statement is the way to describe the problem. Social mobility does happen,. Not in the way that city life predicts. One can move from shoveling waste to sweeping streets from renting to owning a home or from illiteracy to literacy. However moving from sanitation to a profession that's socially respected remains very hard and policy must intervene.
I believe that increasing access to education, scholarships, technical and vocational training, fair hiring and promotion protection from discrimination and safe working conditions will help social mobility a lot. The study recommends hiring practices, enough equipment and technology health benefits campaigns against racial bias, education and training programs and better job chances for the Christian community. These are not charity ideas; they are must‑have conditions, for mobility.
Faisalabad wants to be known as a business hub or a city of commerce and trade. Its industries and markets are signs of economic prosperity, but the sanitation workers’ lives tell a different story. They are the unsung heroes who have made countless sacrifices to give their children a better future. They have contributed to the development of the city by working tirelessly to make the streets cleaner and healthier. However, their efforts have failed to insulate them from years of poverty, marginalization, and exclusion. It is high time Faisalabad began thinking of itself as a city that respects and values social mobility.
Intergenerational mobility is a tricky concept. It speaks of a younger generation that is economically better off than the older one. It means that children are likely to have a greater chance of moving up the social ladder than their parents. It means that the daughter should not only earn more than her father but also have the opportunity to lead a life very different from the one she knows. It means the son should not be doomed to continue pushing his broom every day because there is no other occupation available to him. It means daughters should not have to prove their education and skills to the employers more than sons do simply because their parents’ profession is sanitation. Social mobility is about dignity and rights; it is about fairness and social justice. It is a matter of time that the city starts respecting its sanitation workers and offers them the social status, protection, and opportunities they deserve. Otherwise, it will continue failing to achieve the status of a developed city with developed values.