“Life and Misery of Gypsies in Lahore

Date:
24th November 2010

SUMMARY

Gypsies are a social group of nomads that mostly suffer discrimination from the rest of the society. These gypsy communities in Lahore are living in great misery. They don’t have even the basic facilities of life such as electricity, health, education and clean water for drinking instead there are masses of rubbish and pools of filthy water all around. The children of gypsies run here and there, naked and with dirty hairs and skin, the males are addicted and the ladies move towards the Bazars for begging and prostitution. Government must stop being negligent of these 700,000 people and has to provide them with space for housing, basic facilities of life and provide them with employment to sort out their financial problems.

INTRODUCTION

The Gypsies are one of the most segregated and neglected ethnic groups in all over the world are living a dejected life on the various margins of the globe. In this report the problems and hardships of the gypsies encountered particularly in Lahore will be highlighted. The major issues are improper settlement of gypsies, lack of basic facilities of life for them, lack of education, unemployment and poverty which results in increase in crime rate. The Governments mostly turn their heads from these settlements, regarding them as "lumps" in the body of society. We will discuss different means by which we can over come this problem of the society and help the Gypsies to live a better life.

FINDINGS

❖ There are no exact figures for the number of Gypsies living in Pakistan. The numbers vary from 500,000 to 700,000, as the Gypsies often stay out of the system, failing to register themselves or their children.

|[pic] | |
| |There are masses of garbage, sanitation water, extremely polluted |
| |environment and during the rainy season there is mud everywhere and |
| |without of the basic facilities such as electricity, health and |
| |education |

❖ The males are addicted to drugs and alcohol and to fulfil this need they go to any extreme. They adopt illegal needs such as thefts and robbery which is becoming a big problem for the surrounding urban population.

❖ To overcome the need of money and to bring up the children, the ladies move towards the Bazars for begging and even do prostitution.
| |[pic] |
|Shakoor and his wife Nasreen Bibi, having 5 children aged 3-12 are among| |
|the 40,000 gypsy individuals says: | |
|“We don't have money for anything, we pick food from garbage containers,| |
|and we fight the rats during the night" he goes on. "This is no life." | |

|Lahore District Government is trying to move the Gypsies from some of the slums |[pic] |
|to other residential areas without any proper arrangements and plan. And there is| |
|no conflict, and even lip-service from the civil society and the neighbour | |
|communities. The community don't want to see the Gypsies more in their neighbour | |
|because they don’t want gypsy colonies at all as they are of the opinion that | |
|these colonies give a bad sight to their urbanized society. | |

❖ The election commission have no interest to get the solo representation of those 700,000 gypsies in all over the country, the data from the education department, health department and others have no discussion and notions regarding the Gypsy communities in the development the policies. So it looks like the existence of those 700,000 persons has no meanings for the government.

RECOMMENDATIONS

❖ Pakistan’s urban centres should supply the influx of people with space for housing and strong building regulations for their habitats.

❖ Their local government agencies should provide sanitation and waste treatment facilities at a rate.

❖ There have to be enough schools to educate the children of the influx and enough medical facilities and hospitals to care for its sick, elderly and disabled as well as other basic facilities of life.

❖ The Government has to make its local economies strong enough to absorb the influx and provide it with job opportunities to prevent crimes.

❖ And, of course, the urban centres will have to provide the influx – which will be overwhelmingly poor – with public recreational facilities because every society needs to be healthy and also that other civil societies may not any issues regarding the existence of such gypsy colonies in their neighbour.

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