COVID'S IMPACT ON SLUMS OF INDIA: STORY OF A GIRL

Photo by Somia D Costa on Unsplash

My mother works as a laborer and earns very less because the contactor has set a low fixed wage i.e. Rs.350 for her. They don't let me work because I'm a child and thus, I cannot contribute to my family.

 

Said a girl who has been dropping by my house almost every week since a month. The first time she came, I thought she was some needy child, who was a victim of the covid situation and was thus asking for food. I gave her some pieces of bread and a mango and wanted to know her whereabouts after which she left. She came again one day, and my mom gave her some food and she left. Today, she opened up more about her life when my mom asked her about it and this is what she said (written above). I felt so privileged after this. I went inside trying to find anything in the house that we weren't using that would make her happy. We gave her some clips to pin down her hair and some old hairbands that my sister had along with a kurta set. On being asked, why doesn't she study, she replied very calmly saying, " Didi, mere papa nahi hai na isliye, nahi padti mai." Then I asked if she knew the basic alphabets, she said, yes, ofcourse I know. She very happily started reciting it to me, A B C D E F and stopped at G since she couldn't remember after that. She told us that the tickets have been confirmed, and she will be returning to her village in Bihar in a few days. She wanted to work so bad and contribute to her family that she even asked whether she could work at our place. She picked up the broom and started sweeping the floor. I didn't stop her because I could sense the happiness she was getting from it. After 5 minutes, I stopped her saying, " Chalo, kaafi hai itna, ab ghar chale jao aap." After which she went. 

This made me wonder, that we think that child labor is a really bad thing, which it eventually is, but the burden of earning primarily falls on the kids staying in the slums. Looking at the struggles of her mother, she was doing as much as she could according to her age. I was really disheartened when I heard her story, but this is the story of every poor person staying in the slums and the burden that their kids bear. Since they are needy at this time, the contractors offer them work at such low wages in which they have to work helplessly. They still work because they've got kids to feed at home. These effects of Covid are so deeply rooted in the informal sector, that the unemployment rate has nearly tripled. They are working hard at these low wages and doing whatever they can. It feels very good at our comfortable places, celebrating the lockdown time with our family. We are so blinded by it, that we just cannot see their daily struggle to manage some amount of money and get their basic necessities. I would really ask you one thing, if any slum kid comes to your place asking for some money or food, please give it to them as they are in desperate need of it. These people are starving, and they are not aware of the policies that the government has initiated for them. There are a lot of NGOs working to help people staying in slums, helping them with the basic necessities. We should play our part too by helping them, or donating some basic funds.