page_title: Sanitation worker
section_title: Challenges
hierarchical_section_title: Sanitation worker / Challenges
caption_attribution_description: English: Kenya - Manual Pit Emptying in Korogocho
context_page_description: A sanitation worker is a person responsible for cleaning, maintaining, operating, or emptying the equipment or technology at any step of the sanitation chain. This is the definition used in the narrower sense within the WASH sector. More broadly speaking, sanitation workers may also be involved in cleaning streets, parks, public spaces, sewers, stormwater drains and public toilets. Another definition is: "The moment an individual’s waste is outsourced to another, it becomes sanitation work."
  Those workers who maintain and empty on-site sanitation systems contribute to functional fecal sludge management systems.
  It is important to safeguard the dignity and health of sanitation workers. Without sanitation workers, the Sustainable Development Goal 6, Target 6.2 cannot be achieved.
  Some organisations use the term specifically for municipal solid waste collectors, whereas others exclude the workers involved in management of solid waste sector from its definition.
context_section_description: The challenges faced by sanitation workers can be categorized as follows: occupational safety and health, legal and institutional issues, financial insecurity, and social issues.
caption: Sanitation workers carrying out unsafe manual pit emptying of a pit latrine in Korogocho slums in Kenya
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