Children on frontline of Pakistan economic crisis

by Hasan Mansoor
 Abdus Sattar Edhi remembers a tearful mother who agonised over whether or not to abandon her three-year-old son to charity after her husband lost his job.    "Three years ago, we used to receive a couple of kids across the country a day, but the number is rising mainly because our people's economic situation is weakening," said Edhi, who heads the charitable Edhi Foundation.    "Now we receive one or two kids every day just in Karachi, and across the country five or six," he said.    On the porch outside the charity's head office in Pakistan's depressed economic capital of Karachi, metal cradles hang from chains beneath a sign that reads: "Do not kill, lay them here."    Parents lay up to 40 children a month in the cradles -- a heartbreaking indication of just how tough it has become to feed and clothe families in a country where the economic situation is worsening almost daily.    Already reeling from years of constant bomb attacks, regional insurgencies, and battles between government troops and Islamist extremists in the northwest, Pakistani economy has little positives to offer to its 170 million population.    Food prices have soared and overall inflation is rising again after a brief decline from all-time high 25 percent in 2009.    In November 2009, the International Monetary Fund approved a 7.6 billion-dollar bail-out package to stabilise Pakistan's economy and avoid a balance of payments crisis and defaults on foreign loans.    Pakistan's crippling energy shortages have been blamed on corruption, short-sightedness, debts, a creaking distribution system and a lack of money or refusal to invest public funds in renewable energy as demand grows.    Pakistan produces only around 80 percent of its electricity needs and each year as temperatures rise towards 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), furious crowds riot across the country, heaping pressure on the unpopular government.    White-collar jobs are also disappearing as managers struggle to keep businesses afloat.    According to Edhi, this was the undoing of Jehan Ara, who in floods of tears lay her toddler in a crib as she could no longer to afford to care for him.    "She said 'I'm leaving him until we have the means to raise him. His father is a labourer who has lost his job in a mill and my earnings are not enough to feed him and my two older kids'," Edhi remembered.    The foundation runs 18 centres across the country, housing more than 2,000 children at any one time. In Karachi, there are about 200.    The children live in dormitories, attend school classes, share a communal play area and go on monthly outings.    Sometimes, Edhi said, the children ask where their parents are.    "Someone threw me in the cradle and I've been here ever since. It is now my family," says Mohsin, who is nicknamed Kaka, meaning little boy.    Anwer Kazmi, an official at Edhi's foundation, said there are 320 cradles outside Edhi offices nationwide, including 40 in Karachi.    -- As times getting tougher, more children are left --    Pakistan has suffered from crushing poverty since it was created almost 64 years ago when a century of British rule ended. Today it is number 125 on the UN's human development index of 169 countries.    Pakistan's gross domestic product (GDP) has plunged to 2 percent in the current fiscal year, which was six percent at its peak in 2008.    "If people stop leaving their children at my doorstep it would show Pakistan is on the path of prosperity," said Edhi. "But since cradles are continuously filling at my centres, I don't see it happening in near future."    On the pavement outside a nearby restaurant, kitchen staff set down lentil soup and bread -- charity for the children.    Kaiser Bengali, an economist and former member of the government's economic council, said 40 percent of Pakistan's population live on one dollar a day or less. The government puts the figure at 33 percent.    Food prices that have increased manifold since 2005 only made the poor poorer, Bengali said.    Imran Ali, 32, worked in a knitwear factory in Karachi's slum neighbourhood of Korangi, where he earned 200-300 rupees (2.5 to 3.6 dollars) a day depending on how many shirts he stitched, until his services were terminated.    "I am a father of four and can't afford to live without working. It's impossible to find a job anywhere now and people like me don't have the savings to start working independently," he said.    With little hope of finding another job, he says his family depends on what his 14-year-old son earns selling flowers at traffic lights to supplement his wife's salary as a maid.    "Their earnings are too little to buy bread for all and keep the other kids in school," he said.    Pakistan, which has watched arch rival India embark on the path to prosperity and regional superpower status, was slapped with heavy sanctions after going nuclear in 1998, further suffocating economic development.    Former president Pervez Musharraf's decision within hours of the September 11, 2001 attacks to back the US-led "war on terror" saw Washington pump in 10 billion dollars of aid money and cancel billions more in foreign debt.    Economists warn against a vicious cycle, saying mounting economic problems boost civil disturbances and fan the flames of militancy.    The government has blamed the economic woes on the fight against terrorism, but many ordinary people accuse the authorities of squandering aid money.

Child misery behind Pakistan's festive bangles

by Hasan Mansoor
Ten-year-old Mohammad Adnan leans towards the blazing furnace, moulding bangles for up to 12 hours a day to earn 18 cents to help feed his Pakistani family. "I'm just starting and can make six to seven tora (300 bangles) a day and earn 14 to 15 rupees," said Adnan, a smile on his tired face in Pakistan's southern city of Hyderabad. Adnan is just one of thousands of Pakistani children toiling to manufacture the popular glass bracelets that adorn the arms of practically every woman who can afford them in the south Asian nation of 170 million.    The jewellery is particularly popular on festive occasions such as this week's Eid al-Fitr celebration that marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. In the build-up to Eid, Pakistani artisans work overtime, hunched for hours over fires to churn out bangles in every possible colour, exerting maximum effort for least reward at the bottom of a high-earning industry. Mohammad Kaleem, Adnan's father, is one of the best paid, earning 3,000 rupees (36 dollars) a month for carving names and designs onto the thin glass. "I inherited this art from my father and now I am transferring it to my son," Kaleem said. Pakistan's bangle industry started on the banks of the Indus river in 1947 when a large number of artisans migrated to Hyderabad as British colonialists partitioned the Indian sub-continent, creating two independent nations. But for every bangle given as a present in wealthy homes this Eid, lies a disturbing tale of child labour, poverty and Dickensian misery. A 2004 survey commissioned by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) found that 10,000 children aged five to 17 -- 1,000 of them younger than 10 and 29 percent of them girls -- were working in the bangle industry in Hyderabad. Most of them come from poor homes with illiterate parents, dropping out of school because of poverty. "I couldn't go to school after fourth grade because the whole family has to work to survive and our jobs coincide with school time," said 14-year-old Mohammad Kamran. Pakistan's last national child labour survey in 1996 said 3.3 million children were at work. Since then, the overall population has risen by 30 million and charities say the figures are much higher. "We believe these official figures are unrealistically low," says Pakistan's Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. "With at least 23 million children of school-going age not attending school, the actual number of child laborers must be higher," its website says. The ILO survey said 86 percent of the children worked full-time and that nearly 58 percent spoke of sickness or injury. The children suffer from fever, skin disease, cuts, wounds, headaches and backache due to heavy loads. The study highlighted the risks of working for hours at a time near the furnaces used for moulding and joining, and also from toxic chemicals used in coating and painting. In a closed room of a Hyderabad slum, Fatima Ali, 35, cuts a cylinder of glass into batches of 300, then starts to smooth the bangles over a flame. "I work along with my husband, three sons and two daughters (who are aged eight to 15) all day, yet we earn little more than 6,000 rupees (75 dollars) a month -- not enough to live a better life," she said. Fatima said she wore a bangle just once -- at her wedding 18 years ago. "I can't wear it now, because I feel no attraction in its colours and glitter like other women," she said.

Floods rupture Pakistani feudal ties

by Hasan Mansoor
SUKKUR: Bakhsh Ali Lashari has spent the last year living in a tent since floods devastated a third of Pakistan. His home is no longer under water, but death threats mean he's never going back.

The monsoon-triggered floods -- the worst in Pakistani history -- affected up to 21 million people, killed another 1,750 and ran up losses of $10 billion; a year later a shattered economy has barely recovered.
Lashari's part of southern Pakistan was one of the worst hit areas, submerged in gushing waters that took months to recede. But the disaster gave him a chance to break free from centuries of oppression.

He is one of thousands who prefer life in rotting camps to returning to feudal estates where debts and marriages can end in death.

Lashari had a steady income as a labourer in Jacobabad, 375 kilometres (234 miles) north of Karachi, but said life became unbearable when an influential tribe took against one of their women marrying one of his relatives.

"The couple suddenly disappeared and the influential tribe threatened all of us with death," said Lashari, wearing just baggy shalwar trousers and standing in a tent city on the fringes of Sukkur city.

"We couldn't have moved away in normal circumstances. Then the floods came and we fled. It was a blessing in disguise. We are not going back now."

His camp, lying under a bridge, was one of scores set up by foreign aid groups, the United Nations and local charities in August 2010.

But as waters have receded, many relief organisations abandoned the camps, dismantling education programmes and leaving behind uncomfortable, sagging tents where thousands have remained, either unable or unwilling to go home.

"They have nothing to lose if they don't go home," said Jaffer Memon, who edits a newspaper in the southern city of Hyderabad and who worked as a volunteer during the floods.

"In fact they'll get rid of feuds, burgeoning debts and lethal customs that force them to marry off minor daughters to elderly men to settle feuds, and kill their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters in the name of honour," said Memon.

Deedar Ali Jatoi, an ailing grandfather from the town of Garhi Khero, whose entire family has moved into tents, couldn't agree more. His community was locked in a feud with a rival tribe that killed dozens of loved ones on both sides.

"We've decided never to return. We don't want to put our lives in danger again," he told AFP in the same tent city on the edge of Sukkur, where women cook on makeshift wooden stoves and younger children play naked outside.

"We are poor peasants but as members of a tribe we're bound to follow our chieftains and fight against rivals. But I don't want to see any of my children killed in such feuds."

"We have started earning now and can support our families. We're not going anywhere. We want homes here, not there," Jatoi said.

In Hyderabad, hundreds of flood survivors are camped out in the corridors of buildings of a new fruit market. Most found the wages double what they were earning back home -- up to $4.50 a day for menial jobs.

Those who returned home have tales of woe. "Our houses have been under water for months and are too dangerous to live in," said Virsingh Patel, 34, a peasant from a Hindu village near Hyderabad.

"We were given just a few bricks to construct our homes. We have no money to purchase cement and extra bricks to make our homes safe," said Patel.

Nadeem Ahmed, who was chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority during the floods, acknowledged the shortcomings, which he attributed to a lack of donation pledges -- in sharp contrast with the response after the 2005 earthquake.

"Now where things have really gone wrong is the reconstruction," he told reporters in Islamabad on Thursday.

"Out of those $10 billion required for reconstruction, I think hardly $1 billion or $1.5 billion have been committed so far. So there is a huge gap towards rebuilding or reconstruction."

In Patel's village, Radha Kolhi, 50, pointed to a picture of her dead husband hanging on a cracked wall and clothes and utensils lumped in a corner.

"Even if we can rebuild our house, we'll never live without fear. "The flood washed away the hurdles between us and the river, so now even a smaller flood can send us in camps," she said.
July 2011

Pakistan's poor dying in Karachi violence

by Hasan Mansoor

KARACHI: Life stopped for Pakistani cab driver Ghulam Mohammed when his seven-year-old daughter was shot dead on her way home from school, a victim of senseless political and ethnic violence sweeping Karachi.

Shumaila was Mohammed's only child, born after he and his wife struggled for 12 years to have a baby. It took two stray bullets to bury all the hopes and dreams they had for the future.

"She was the one who gave meaning to our life. Now we have no reason to live," said the tearful 36-year-old, a resident of Qasba Colony, one of a series of troubled neighbourhoods in western Karachi turned into a battlefield.

Shumaila was one of 300 people whom the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) says died in political and ethnically linked shootings in Karachi last month and one of the 1,000 killed since the start of this year.

She was carrying her books when the bullets pierced her abdomen and splintered a rib. Seriously wounded, she was eventually picked up by an ambulance after medics struggled to access the street under gunfire.

"Someone told me my daughter had been shot and I rushed to hospital despite all the risks, only to find her dead in the morgue," Mohammed said.

Many link the killings to rising tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the Awami National Party (ANP).

The native Baloch and Sindhis also blame MQM for attacks and vice versa. Karachi is Pakistan's financial capital and, with a population of around 18 million, its largest city.

Helped by its Arabian Sea port, industry in Karachi is thought to account for around a fifth of the country's GDP. But authorities appear powerless to stop the bloodshed, human rights activists say, pointing out that most of the victims are innocent civilians.

"People have been killed because of their political affiliations, but it seems most are killed because of their ethnic background," Zohra Yusuf, chairwoman of the HRCP, told AFP.

"The majority of them are poor and destitute."

Shumaila was Pashtun. Her father arrived in Karachi from the northwest 20 years ago looking for work and then settled down and got married.

Today the northwest is on the frontline of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bomb attacks and the migrant flow to Karachi is even greater.

Shumaila's bereaved parents live on a congested street in a neighbourhood of Urdu and Pashtun speakers, where trigger-happy gunmen from both sides can quickly reduce the area into a battlefield.

HRCP says Karachi suffers political, ethnic and sectarian "polarisation". But the government blames vague mafias involved in land grabbing and drug pushing for the killings, and for creating "misunderstandings" among political parties and ethnic hatred.

"It should not be called ethnic violence," said Sharfuddin Memon, an official in the home ministry of the southern province Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital.

"The mafias are killing people in such a manner that rival communities and parties are left with the impression of an ethnic war which is not there. The mafias do this to get stronger and weaken the writ of the state."

The Urdu-speaking family of Anwer Ali, 22, say he was walking to work when unknown gunmen shot him dead.

"He was the only bread earner for his mother and two sisters," said his cousin Mohsin Ali. The family rent a one-room house in a squatter settlement near the area of Katti Pahari, a flashpoint for the most recent violence, and are deeply frightened about the future.

It is not just shootings. People have seen everything they own go up in smoke, with their houses, buildings and vehicles set alight by arsonists. Despite the deployment of extra police and paramilitary forces, residents complain that the security personnel do nothing to help.

Leaders in the MQM and ANP have blamed each other.

"Mafias are involved in the killings, but armed wings of political parties have played a big role in creating the mess," said Tauseef Ahmed Khan, who teaches mass communications at Urdu University.

The armed wings work to maintain party influence, prevent rival groups from infiltrating their territories and force people to remain loyal, he said.

"There are killings on ethnic grounds while most of the victims are poor people who don't know the reason why they are being killed," Khan said.
August 2011

Pakistan sex workers on AIDS frontline

by Hasan Mansoor
A prostitute born and brought up in Karachi's Napier Road red-light district, Shumaila never heard about HIV and AIDS until recently. Today, she carries condoms but clients refuse to wear them.

"None of us were aware about the danger of AIDS looming over us for years but now we all know and can avoid it," said the tall 29-year-old who lives in a Victorian-style building in the heart of the neighbourhood.

Shumaila's awareness -- rare among Pakistan sex workers -- is thanks to the Gender and Reproductive Health Forum, a local charity that runs a UN-funded programme in Napier Road teaching prostitutes about the perils of HIV/AIDS.
"So far we have provided hundreds of thousands of condoms to sex workers in the last two years, which have saved them from being infected with the lethal virus," said Mirza Aleem Baig, who runs the forum.

Karachi, Pakistan's largest metropolis and one of the biggest Muslim cities in the world, has up to 100,000 female sex workers, according to data gathered by Pakistan Society, a local welfare organisation.

"This is 20 percent of their overall population in Pakistan. Lahore comes next with 75,000 sex workers," Saleem Azam, head of the charity, told AFP.

Prostitution may be illegal but it has prospered in an increasingly Islamised Pakistan, where an economic downturn and widening poverty have forced women and men onto the streets to meet the rising cost of living.

Shaheena, 38, is a home-based sex worker. She is a skilled paramedic but seldom finds a permanent job.

"So I opted to enter this business on the side," she told AFP, veiling her face to hide her identity.

"I have sibblings, cousins, nephews and nieces who don't know about my second profession. So I don't want to identify myself to embarass them.

"But it's a question of survival as none of my relatives support me with money. They are all too stretched themselves," she said.

Azam says more than 60 percent of Pakistan's prostitutes work from homes or ply the streets, while the elite serve wealthy clients from kothikhanas (houses or rooms) in plush neighbourhoods.

This year's annual UN report on AIDS said while the epidemic in Asia appears to be stable overall, HIV prevalence is increasing in some parts of the region, such as Bangladesh and Pakistan.

A survey published in the report said 60 percent of female sex workers and 45 percent of their male clients in Karachi and Lahore do not know that condoms can prevent transmission of HIV. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afp9PQNMM00]
Of those that do, few protect themselves. "The number of our clients who agree to wear a condom is very small. Female condoms are not available, which can save us more effectively," said Nasreen, another prostitute in Napier Road.

"I can't carry condoms in my purse on the street as we're vulnerable to the police and could be arrested if they find them," said Afshan, 29, who walks the city's busy streets looking for clients.

The most recent survey conducted by Pakistan's state-run National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) in 2006 said only 18 percent of sex workers reported always using condoms.

The UN report estimates that around 97,000 people, or 0.1 percent of the population, live with HIV in Pakistan. The government says only 5,000 people are infected.

NACP says the disease is spreading among high-risk groups, especially drug users, who mostly inject and use dirty needles, raising fears the virus could spread quickly from addicts to prostitutes.

In 2006, Pakistan said HIV/AIDS prevalence among female sex workers was around 0.02 percent, but independent bodies put it much higher.

"It is at least 15 percent," said Azam. "They are totally at the mercy of their clients. Most of their clients refuse to wear condoms," he said.

"In Pakistan, this business is illegal, thus there is no law to seriously tackle the issue and save precious lives. Yet a way-out is desperately needed on humanitarian grounds."

Baig said he had identified an HIV-positive sex worker a few months ago and tried to help her with treatment and a new job but she left because her colleagues considered her a blot on their business.

"Now, no one knows where she is and what she is doing," he said.