Hunger is not time bound!

Pakistan In Picture

 

Asem Mustafa Awan
Islamabad: Her quest starts early morning as hunger is not time-bound she spends hours in the trash as that her life’s destiny which will not change for another generation if she survives.
Yes, this is the ‘land of the pure’ the ‘promised site’ achieved with the blood of over a million dead. What has gone wrong over the past few decades is a question which has an answer known to everyone but the solution is nowhere in sight.
She sits in filth and probably hasn’t had a bath in a long time with hair infested with lice she is focused on one objective that to find something of value either to eat or sell.
This is a very common sight on all the garbage dumps where people who happen to be in ‘Pakistan’ and have nowhere else to go as no one owns them or feels responsible for them.
These children are also fighting for food with hungry dogs and yes these garbage dumps have also been the site for newborns getting saved either by making noise or someone (guardian angel) is there to spot the crime when it is committed.
There are also dead bodies that are found time and again as these murders stay unsolved for infinite times.
These ‘garbage collecting children’ are in millions as Pakistan’s population is touching 230 million and more and the reports state that over half the population is living below the poverty line.
The unprecedented inflation has made millions jobless and without food and the basic need as in staple food is diminishing (smuggled) by the day.
What is going to happen, no one knows very much like the child who survives on a daily basis and has nowhere to go in life.
Life for 230 million has also become very harsh and what appears to be coming will make it harsher.
Blessed with an abundance of everything in the form of natural resources and agricultural land but where the problem lies no one is addressing the issue.
How many more generations like this child is going to be sacrificed by the policymakers who get their fat pay cheque and live a life of luxury at the expense of the poor?
The existing laws state education and health for all that include meals in some schools whether this practice is really carried out, if it is checked in true letter and spirit will unearth corruption details where children are robbed of their food.
It is on record the current Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s visit to Sindh during floods sometime back had all children barefoot and the building was that of a school in ‘ruins’.

The writer is a journalist based in Islamabad and writes on a wide range of issues.

Photo Credit: APP