Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Development & Aid, Headlines, Human Rights, World Social Forum

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Where Dreams Are Shattered in a Garbage Heap

Zofeen Ebrahim* - IPS/TerraViva

KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan 29 2005 (IPS) - ”Can the poor ever look happy?” counters 70-year old Raheema, without looking up. She is bent double, rummaging through the garbage with her bare hands, looking for old rusted iron nails, scrap metal, animal bones, plastic and broken glass.

Raheema is not angry. Her mind is pre-occupied and there is despondency in her tone. Her son is unwell and has gone to the city, leaving her to do his share of the rummaging as well.

So when she hears that thousands of miles away, people are meeting for the fifth World Social Forum on the banks of the Guaiba River in Porto Alegre in Brazil, to discuss human rights and dignity for a fairer world, she remains unimpressed.

”There is no one from our community who can aim to go up to the local government level and ask for our most basic rights. What more to talk of these things overseas?” she says.

The place where Raheema is picking through garbage is the Deh Jam Chakro, an area of about two square kilometers, an hour-and-a-half away from the heart of the city, where all civilisation ends and enclosed on three sides by barren hills. The municipality likes to refer to it as a landfill site, but for all practical purposes it is just a dumping ground.

The area is next to the municipal site, but there is no demarcation. It has some 200 families (600-800 people), some Hindus but the majority of them are Muslims, living with each other in perfect harmony. Nobody steals from the other’s heaps – this is an unwritten rule because each garbage load is paid for by individual families.

With no water, electricity and shelter, they have either each other for support or the ‘wadera’ (feudal lord) of the area to protect them. But this he does for a price.

Jan Mohammad Brohi, the landlord, claims that his forefathers inherited the land from the British where the garbage pickers reside and separate the garbage.

”We pay him 15 rupees (20 U.S. cents) for each heap of garbage, 50 rupees (85 U.S. cents) as house rent, and he sells us a gallon of water for 5 rupees (8 U.S. cents),” says Sanwal, who migrated from the Sindh interior, where his family tended the land. Sanwal has put up a tea kiosk at the site. Gul Bano, a young mother is sure the ‘wadera’ will help secure the release, from police custody, of her drug addict husband.

Sitting contentedly inside her hut, chewing ‘ghutka’ (a concoction of betel nut, tobacco and flavouring) incessantly, she’s done with the day’s sorting of garbage. ”It took me between ten to twelve days to separate this. I should be getting 600 to 700 rupees (10 to 12 U.S. dollars) for all this,” she points to a basket full of nails and iron.

Explaining the wheeling and dealing going on between the pickers and the municipal workers, she says: ”We pay 50 rupees to the municipal truck to dump the garbage where we want and not at their designated site, then we burn it. Once the ashes cool down, we use a magnet to collect the iron, then we sort out the glass, old nails, silver and aluminum.”

She takes her 10-month old son to her workplace. ”He plays with the garbage while I sort it,” she says nonchalantly, oblivious to the various dangers the child is exposed to.

The smoke is all pervading, and most people one talks to complain of sore throats, breathlessness, runny eyes and nose and congestion.

”I hate the smoke and the dust,” says Abase, her silver bangles making a pleasant sound as she props her hand up to shade her eyes. She has no teeth and complains of breathlessness.

But her son, sitting nearby and listening to her, is sure ”it’s the iron in the garbage that keeps us healthy in this sickly environment.” He doesn’t mind the dust or the heat but fears the rain as it ”only brings havoc for us. Our shelters get washed away and the garbage cannot be burnt – we lose out either way.”

The women have it worse. For their everyday basic needs like relieving themselves, there are no latrines at home and they have to find a bush to relieve themselves and that too, at an appropriate time.

To take a bath they have to make a makeshift bathroom, but the worst is when they fall sick. ”We hitch a ride on the municipal truck and once on the main road, we get the public transport.” Interestingly, none of them complain of dog bites, rodents, mosquitoes and flies.

There is not a single traditional birth attendant, much less a midwife. Most women prefer to go to the hospitals for delivering babies and getting check-ups.

”The women in our community do most of the work like fetching water from the nearby river, for which they have to climb the hill,” says Sanwal.

”They wash clothes, take their bath and bring water for use. It takes about half hour to climb up, another twenty to get to the riverside. Walking back, of course, takes longer as they have to balance the filled pitchers and wind is rough too,” he acknowledges.

”Other than that they also separate the garbage, cook for us, take care of the children. Little wonder then that most men have enough free time to hang around, watch movies on battery charged video recorders, and squander money on hash,” adds the tea-stall holder.

While everyone else across the globe seems preoccupied with war and conflicts, there is a small world of its own in Deh Jam Chakro, where human beings live in subhuman conditions and sift through the garbage in which they live, literally, to be able to feed hungry mouths.

(* This is part of a special series commissioned from the IPS network by the edition of TerraViva at the World Social Forum 2005, Jan. 26-31, 2005.