Each of the 100-something tents set up in an empty plot of Johar Town’s F Block tells a tale of abandonment, vulnerability and abject poverty. The lack of running water, access to safe drinking water, electricity and basic hygiene here represent the predicament of gypsies or the khanabadosh living in subhuman conditions of fringe settlements.

Standing in the midst of the squalor, seven-year-old Seema shares her dreams and hopes for a better life. “I want to go to school and be a good girl so that everybody would love me. My friends and I play all day in the streets because we do not know what else to do.”

Seema lives with her grandparents among hundreds of other gypsy squatters who have come to live in F Block from all over the province. Most of the children living here spend their days roaming the streets of the locality they live in.

According to a 2010 United Nation’s Human Development report, over half of Pakistanis are deprived of basic education and health facilities, and live below a respectable standard of living. The report highlights that approximately 51 per cent of the population lives in, what it describes as multi-dimensional poverty, with 54pc of the population suffering from intense deprivation. According to the World Bank, Pakistan is ranked among 43 countries as the country most exposed to poverty risks.

Article 25(A) of the Constitution of Pakistan guarantees children between the ages of five to 16 years the right to free and compulsory education. The responsibility for ensuring free and compulsory education rests with the state, including its federal and provincial government agencies. But is the state delivering on its commitment under Article 25(A)?

It is a bitter reality that most gypsy families rely on scavenging and begging as a primary source of income. These families also tend to have more children than the national average, ostensibly to improve their income. This propensity compounds the problem as their incomes remain woefully inadequate to meet their needs, and begs the question: why are these citizens not on the government’s list of priorities?

Lahore Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sumair Ahmed Syed says, “The government should make a sincere effort for the betterment of the gypsies. The private sector and government can work together to bring a change among the gypsy communities.”

Yet there is no official record or registration of the births or deaths of gypsies. Neither is there a process to facilitate such data collection, which undoubtedly, would aid the process of assessing the needs of this group of citizens. It would be fair to say that in the eyes of the state, gypsy communities simply do not exist. However, several NGOs have attempted interventions to highlight the precariousness of their existence. GODH, one such NGO, helps gypsies obtain computerised national identity cards and birth certificates with help from the Social Welfare Department. These days, the NGO is training representatives of various gypsy communities to obtain legal documents on their own.

In order to turn things around for this community, the state must collect data on such communities and shed light on their basic needs. It is only when such an exercise has been undertaken that a realistic picture of their status, difficulties and needs will become available.

There is no evidence that such an exercise is being carried out, or has ever been carried out. Perhaps a lack of information provides the responsible agencies a convenient excuse to completely ignore the existence of these people.

The gypsies residing in Lahore remain invisible and abandoned by the state even though many of them have lived here for decades. According to a survey conducted by a private sector agency, there are 7 million gypsies in Pakistan – 2m of them in Balochistan and 1.1m in the Punjab.

Aziza Bibi, 19, moved to Lahore with her husband and three children from Haveli Lakha a while back, and likes it better here. “Our children get polio vaccinations in Lahore and my husband makes more money begging here than in our native town. We depend on local communities for help instead of the state. For example, we fetch water from nearby houses and the residents here sometimes give us food and clothing,” she says.

The gypsy communities, however, are beset with problems ranging from the question of citizenship, deprivation, social exclusion, homelessness, and limited economic opportunities, to name a few. Most analyses indicate that gypsy communities face utmost exclusion and are forced to live like aliens in rural and urban areas of Pakistan.

The story of Mohammad Sabir, 28, who hails from a gypsy community, is a unique one. The young man once lived in a slum in the outskirts of Lahore and struggled hard to educate himself. He now helps his community by building mobile toilets and educating gypsy children. Not everyone, however, can share his fate. “My community is like the untouchables. They are outcasts, heavily discriminated against, persecuted by the authorities and denied jobs,” Mr Sabir laments.

One cannot keep a cork under water for long. With the propensity for having large families, this blot on the national psyche is likely to emerge as a problem, not just for the gypsies, but a major one for the country as a whole, if the issue is not dealt with in a rational, sensitive and progressive manner.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2017