The Thai authorities have tasked the cleaning of Bangkok’s waste sewer system with some prisoners who descend into the canals to remove the dirt using only their hands.
Usually, the capital, which rises one and a half meters above sea level, is flooded by heavy rains, which leads to clogging of the sewer network. After the concrete slabs lining the channels are lifted, dozens of prisoners in safety boots and thick gloves descend to the bottom to clean up the mud and fill the large iron boxes with foul-smelling waste. The work is “very hard and exhausting,” says the 33-year-old prisoner, who was not identified, adding that “the smell was bad.” He is one of about eighty prisoners transferred from three prisons to a suburb east of Bangkok to carry out these duties.
This job, which no one wants to do, is a task that allowed the prisoners to earn some money, but most importantly contributed to the mitigation of their sentence, since for every day worked in the isolation ward, one day of imprisonment is removed from the sentence. sewerage. “I am always ready to do this job so that I can return to my family as soon as possible,” says a prisoner wearing a light blue cap and a dark blue suit with “Prisoner” written on the back.
Fine reduction
The prisoners work all day long in the suffocating heat, eating food provided by merchants who are happy to see that the pipes outside their stores are finally clean. “For the first time since the pandemic, prisoners have cleared the sewer system,” says a Bangkok prison guard who declined to give his name because he was not allowed to speak to the press.
The capital, once called the “Venice of the East”, suffers from flooding during the rainy season, which lasts from July to October, and clogged sewer pipes exacerbate the problem. A Bangkok government official believes that “more active cleaning of sewers at the beginning of the rainy season will help the channels drain water faster, and there will be no problems as soon as it rains.” For one prisoner with less than a year left behind bars, cleaning the drains has helped him come to terms with his past. “We made mistakes in our lives that landed us in jail, so I feel gratified as soon as I have the chance to get out of jail and serve the community.”
