POVERTY

Research has shown that children in such situations tend to find themselves nabbed, and given a career path that spells destitution – let it be working as child labourers in a factory for a dollar a month; let it be as roadside beggars depositing a greater share of their daily earnings to their task masters; or let it be an act as vulgar as prostitution. This child was barely five – was this her fate? Was the nation going to attempt to protect her? Even farcically at best? After all – troops do follow their leader. At her tender age, what ill had she done to be given an opportunity to survive this preposterous world?
Today, while the world cries for economic support, victims of the Baluchistan earthquake cry for something as simple as a shard of clothing. Morality is a private and costly luxury, and yet, we find ourselves in a nation bereft of the very essence of the same. While the basis of existence demands that man experience both luxury, and suffering, it seems that the Pakistani populous has decided to allow luxury only to those who can afford it – the suffering is left to those who have lost all…yet again.