Hunger and world Poverty

Poverty is widespread in Pakistan and is predominant in many areas. Nearly two thirds of the population, and 80 per cent of the country’s poor people, live in rural parts of the country.

However, twins in Bari Imam Ali Naki 8, and Sobia Naki 8, sells Rose flowers and petals left over to earn money for their homes. They study in Mashal Model School. Ali is in Nursery whereas Sobia is in Prep. They have got 4 brothers and 3 sisters among which the eldest brother 16 who is paralyzed by birth. Rests of his brothers are conductors in different vans of different routes. Their sisters stay at home. His father is a driver of van 120 and Mother works in Aabpara as a maid at homes. They daily go to school at 8 am and come back at 2 pm.

“We daily earn around Rs50-100 each. Sobia hands over the money to our mother and I hand over the wage of the day to my father.” said Ali.

Meanwhile Sobia said that, “We live with our aunty. She owns the house. She is a police Women and we are quite scared of her.”

“Our mother asks us not to go for work as we might get lost or kidnapped but we say that we can take care of ourselves. Even if some one tries to come to catch us then we will say it to out Police Women aunty. We work collecting money so that we can also buy beautiful and shimmering things for us as other people wears and uses especially for Eid. I want to buy good-looking clothes and jewelries. Moreover we are also collecting it for the marriage of one of our cousin.” Sobia added.

“We desire to live a glamorous life like other people. We wish to have 3 times meals, good schools to study in, an own house to live and a proper job for our father just the way other people out there have.” said Ali and Sobia.

The causes of poverty include lack of education, poor access to health services, large family size, gender discrimination and weakness to environmental degradation and deterioration of the natural resource base. A steady decrease in remittances, which now amount to less than 10 per cent of their level in 1983, was a factor in the increase of poverty that was seen in the 1990s.