Karachi Garbage Story: Ragpicker children at mercy of... everyone

Seemingly in mid twenties, Jumma Khan doesn’t know his exact age because he has nothing to tell him that. With no birth certificate, identity card or any document for that matter, to prove his belonging to the place of his birth (Karachi), Khan is a ghost who wanders in the streets to make for his bare sustenance.

Forever carrying a large sack on his shoulder, where rests the dumped assorted trash picked up from the streets, Khan makes a beeline everyday from his house, in Jamali Goth, to Bahadurabad, some 20 kilometers displacement. He delves into its streets and parks and all the makeshift garbage dumping stations.

He stays out doing it for straight 12 hours, which is followed with another assorting exercise of the miscellaneous items landed in his sacks, in his own backyard, so he could sell them separately to the Kabar — knackers who buy recyclable goods and after sifting and packing them in volumes, send them to industries as production material.

At the end of each day, on average, he makes less than $10. That is despite the extreme and inhumane exhaustion. Hear from him in the first episode of Karachi Garbage Story series.