24 / 32
Features
24
FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2020
Ghaziabad, India (AFP) - With
his rickshaw sitting idle outside
his one-room shack, Sailesh Ku-
mar is one of the hundreds of
millions of poor Indians hit the
hardest by the world’s biggest
coronavirus lockdown.
His family of six are stuck in
their slum home outside New Delhi
earning nothing and waiting des-
perately for money promised by
the government.
Like an estimated 100 million
others, Kumar is a migrant worker.
He left his home village in Bihar, In-
dia’s poorest state, seven years ago
“for a better life” and “good educa-
tion” for his kids.
Before India’s 21-day lockdown
began on March 25, the 38-year-
old earned - on a good day - the
equivalent of USD4 a day cycling
his rickshaw, while his wife cooked
and cleaned as a domestic worker.
Now with all activity except
essential services halted in the
country of 1.3 billion people, Ku-
mar can’t work, and his wife’s em-
ployers wouldn’t even let her in
the building.
“They feel she will give them
this disease,” he said.
Their home in the city of Ghaz-
iabad on the outskirts of the capi-
tal is one of dozens of single-room
structures in rows with shared toi-
lets and no running water.
It is among the many potential
coronavirus breeding grounds that
have experts alarmed.
“We store water in buckets for
drinking and cooking. We can’t
waste it to wash (our) hands every
time,” Kumar shrugged.
The situation is similarly grim
for Ram Kumar Gautam, hundreds
of kilometres away in the Mumbai
neighbourhood of Dharavi, India’s
biggest slum.
The 30-year-old left his home in
the northern city of Lucknow when
he was just 17.
Until the lockdown, he used
to send his family as much as he
could from the USD9 daily wage
he earned in a factory making
aluminium foil.
“How will I send money home
or pay back loans? The future looks
scary,” he told AFP.
Gautam said he would have
starved but for the generosity of his
employer, who was looking after
him and other stranded employees.
The fear of going hungry sparked
an exodus by hundreds of thou-
sands of migrant workers and their
families back to their villages last
month, many on foot.
Some perished on the way.
The International Labour Or-
ganization (ILO) said this week
that 400 million Indians working
in the informal economy risk fall-
ing deeper into poverty during
the crisis.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
government has announced direct
cash transfers and food subsidies
to help some 800 million people.
But all save one of the seven
workers interviewed for this story
said they have received nothing
so far.
A government official insisted
that payments are being made, say-
ing that cash transfers to bank ac-
counts opened by the poor under
a national scheme would be com-
pleted this week.
For Rajni Devi, a mother of three
who said she cries herself to sleep
in a crowded tenement on the out-
skirts of New Delhi, it can’t come
soon enough.
“Last night we had
roti
(Indian
flatbread) with salt mixed in mus-
tard oil,” she said.
“It’s better to die than starve like
this,” the 30-year-old added.
“I keep hearing that the govern-
ment will do this and that. No one
has even come to see if we are alive
or dead.”
India’s poor hit hardest by virus lockdown
Migrant workers wait on marked areas on the ground to maintain social distancing as they queue to receive food
packets at an industrial area during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against
the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Chennai. PHOTO: AFP
Back in Mumbai, Vatsala Shinde
had a more unusual job, charging
superstitious traders outside the
stock exchange a small fee to feed
her cow.
Now forced out of business af-
ter 37 years, she recently visited a
state-run ration shop desperate for
basics like rice and lentils, but the
manager told her she didn’t qualify
for free supplies.
She is subsisting on food dis-
tributed by a charity.
“I have never seen such a situa-
tion (where) our very survival seems
to be at stake,” Shinde said.
“Somany of us live fromone day
to the next,” said domestic worker
Alambi Shaikh, 70, who is now the
only earning member of her family.
“It’s the poor who keep this
country running,” she said.
“But no one thinks we are
worth anything.”
Singapore (AFP) - Migrant work-
ers in Singapore are living in
fear following a surge of coro-
navirus infections in their dormi-
tories where they say cramped
and filthy conditions make social
distancing impossible.
The city-state, which is battling
a worsening outbreak, this week
quarantined four large dormitory
complexes housing tens of thou-
sands of mostly South Asian work-
ers, where more than 200 cases
have so far been detected.
Infections have also been re-
corded in a handful of other facili-
ties. One worker from Bangladesh,
who lives in a dorm where there are
several known infections but has
not yet been locked down, told AFP
social distancing to halt the spread
of the virus was not possible.
“One small room with 12 people
living together... how can we make
social distance?” the labourer said
in English, on the condition of ano-
nymity. He said hygiene standards
were poor and workers were forced
to use a communal cooking area
and bathroom.
“We know the virus character,
how this is spread - so if this living
condition continue I am very wor-
ried,” he added.
At least one dorm had over-
flowing toilets and rooms infested
with cockroaches, the
Straits Times
newspaper reported, casting a
harsh spotlight on what critics
claim is the disgraceful treatment
of foreign labourers in wealthy
Singapore. The huge dormitories
mostly house construction workers
who typically earn about USD400
to USD500 a month building the
Singapore migrant workers live in fear as virus hits dorms
city-state’s glittering skyscrapers
and shopping malls.
A Bangladeshi man in one of the
quarantined dormitories said work-
ers were increasingly concerned
about the growing number of
asymptomatic cases. “Definitely we
all are worried,” he told AFP, also
speaking anonymously.
“Since last few days, we already
got news that there are so many
people affected without any symp-
toms.” There are about 280,000
migrant construction workers in
Singapore who mostly live in self-
contained dorms, with shops and
other facilities on-site. They are of-
ten located in less desirable parts
of the city, meaning they mix little
with Singaporeans.
After reports emerged of un-
sanitary conditions at one of the
quarantined dorms, the manpower
ministry said it was working to im-
prove the situation.
Caterers are providing meals to
workers in lockdown and cleaning
services have been increased.
A task force involving govern-
ment officials, police and the armed
forces has also been set up to pro-
vide support to foreign workers and
dormitory operators.
The manpower ministry said it
will “continue to keep a close eye
on the dormitory conditions and
will intervene proactively to ensure
standards”. But Amnesty Interna-
tional warned quarantining workers
in close proximity could be a “reci-
pe for disaster”.
“Migrantworkerslivingincrowd-
ed quarters, without opportunities
to self-isolate and protect them-
selves, are at particular risk of ex-
posure to the virus,” said Amnesty’s
Singapore
researcher
Rachel
Chhoa-Howard.
Vice President of Migrant Rights
group Transient Workers Count Too
Alex Au called on the government
to temporarily house some workers
in other locations such as army bar-
racks. “We fear that if the density of
the dorms are not lowered... if the
men are not thinned out, infections
in many of the dorms will rise,”
he said.
The infections at the dorms and
the poor conditions have sparked
soul-searching in Singapore about
the treatment of foreign labourers,
who have played a key role in the
city-state’s dramatic transformation
from a gritty port into an ultra-mod-
ern financial hub.
Foreign workers hanging out along the corridor of the S11 Dormitory in Singapore. PHOTO: AFP