A church leader in Pakistan has voiced concerns over a government job advertisement in local newspapers allegedly discriminating against religious minorities.
Father Saleh Diego, director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace and vicar general of Karachi Archdiocese, called on the government to attend to the issue.
On June 1, the state-run Municipal Corporation West Karachi posted 28 vacancies in various newspapers offering cleaning jobs only for non-Muslims.
Father Diego said it is not the first time that government advertisements “have hurt the sentiments of religious minorities.”
“We have repeatedly appealed to government officials to put an end to the culture of placing advertisements that further stigmatize marginalized minorities,” said the priest reported Vatican News.
The priest called on the government to “take note of the ad and take action against those who are involved in it.”
In June last year, a job posting, which was considered discriminatory toward religious minorities, was commissioned by the Pakistani army.
It drew criticisms from Christian rights activists and was eventually taken down.
According to a study done by Open Doors USA, Pakistan’s Christian minorities make up 80 percent of the country’s sanitation workforce.
Pakistani Christians make up 1.6 percent of the country’s 212.2 million total population.
In 2015, a waste management company employed 7,894 sewer sweepers, majority of whom were Christians.
The Capital Development Authority in Islamabad also employed 1,500 “Christian-only” sweepers.