Working for the Wealthy, Islamabad’s Poor Struggle to Live

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Four-year-old Surraiya has big dreams. “I want to become a doctor,” she says with a smile, as she attends school in one of Islamabad’s irregular settlements – a katchi abadi.  She and the other students work in the daytime and in the evening sit on mats and a handful of chairs under an open sky to learn.

In March, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that his government would build some 5 million houses for the poor. It was to be one of his government’s top priority schemes. Khan vowed to start the effort in April. So far not much can be seen on the ground.

Pakistan’s capital is known for its posh bungalows and trendy cafes, a place for the country’s wealthy and politically connected to mingle. But there is another side of the city as well.

This katchi abadi, the local term for an irregular settlement, is in the G-11 sector of the city, and one of around 50 in Islamabad. The parents of children like Surraiya are domestic workers, most of the mothers are maids. They live there with no basic services.

There is no plumbing for water, no electricity or paved roads. Makeshift houses are made from bamboos, tarpaulin and tin sheets surrounded by bushes and hidden by trees; separated, the katchi abadi stand just a stone’s throw from posh bungalows.

These settlements are found across the country, and have existed in Islamabad for three to four decades. In other places, they have transformed over the decades – from tent homes to proper cement houses. Most of the population moved to urban centers from rural towns due to poverty, war, unemployment, urban development needs, and natural disasters. They work for the wealthy in the city, and live on informal settlements on government land. Only ten are regularized in Islamabad.