Hyderabad’s old city is home to thousands of widows, divorcees, and abandoned women who live in extreme poverty. Many of the male children have stopped attending school and are now working for daily wages.
The Helping Hand Foundation conducted a survey that found that a majority of widows live in rented spaces. The majority of widows work in order to support themselves. A survey was conducted in five major urban slums covering 35 bastis and colonies. There were urban slums in Rajendra Nagar, Hasanagar, Achi Reddy Nagar, Shaheenagar, and Jalpally.
A sample size of 1528 found that 76% of the women were widows, 18 % were single women, and six % were divorced. Over half of the women were over the age of 50, 26 % were between the ages of 41 and 50, 19 % were between the ages of 31 and 40, and 8% were between the ages of 20 and 30.
Of the widowed women, 76 % lost their spouse due to chronic health issues, 18 % due to natural causes, while 6 % due to accidents.
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71 % of the widows said they live in rented homes, and 22 % live in their own homes built on an area of 30-40 square feet. A small number live in charitable donated spaces. Rent is typically paid by about half of the income of people who live in rented spaces.
Among widows, 50 % work as domestics or maids in houses, while 36 % depend on their extended family for support and 14 % rely on alms from neighbours and relatives.
Dropouts from school
According to the survey, 68 % of children of widows, particularly male children between the ages of 8 and 15 years, have dropped out of school in the last two years and are working at tea stalls, hotels, sweet shops, and small factories earning between Rs 100 and Rs 150 per day to supplement household incomes.
Observing the results of the survey, Mujtaba Hasan Askari of Helping Hand Foundation said that social security for widows and single women is inadequate, and their wages are low in the old city, and these issues need to be addressed by the government and civil society.
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