Nearly naked and covered with a black, foul-smelling muck, Shafiq Masih struggles out of a sewer he has just cleaned by hand in an upmarket district of Lahore, Pakistan's second biggest city. Every day the 44-year-old descends into the city's sewers, braving toxic gases emitted by excrement, pollutants and other waste, to manually unblock the drains of the city. Like the vast majority of sanitation workers in Pakistan, Shafiq is a Christian, and doing a job that comes with strong social stigma -- one considered impure by many Muslims.

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