Drought spells disaster for the little women of Orissa

The burden of maintaining her ailing mother and two younger sisters fell on her young shoulders. She persisted with her schooling for some time, doubling it up with her job of a housemaid to feed her mother and sisters, Ballabi (7) and Bandhebi (10).

She soon realised the futility of it all as the money proved insufficient to feed them all and meet the medical expenses of her ailing mother as well. Now she works whole day long as a farm labour. But worse times lay ahead for her.

When the rains failed and crop dried up in July, Saudamini was left in a lurch with no work coming her way in the village. The family starved for days and younger sister Bandhebi fell seriously ill. She died soon after as the family could not afford proper treatment and food.

After her death, Saudamini swallowed her self-esteem to start begging in Padampur town along with sister Ballabi. Now the sisters, pleading for rice with aluminum plates in their hands, are a common sight in Padampur.

“Both the sisters collect around a kg of rice as alms and we manage our household with that. My children sometimes go hungry for two to three days at a stretch as people are reluctant to give them alms in this famine,” says a tearful mother Shanti.

A neighbour, Murali Kumbher, adds that repeated pleas to local authorities to help the family under the state’s many social welfare programmes has fallen on deaf ears.“It will be very difficult for them, this struggle with the famine. It may claim their lives and the girls may even be pushed into the flesh trade,” he warns.

This tale of the three sisters is not an isolated one in the state. The number of children seen begging on the streets of Padampur has significantly gone up with the failure of the rains. So much so that people are now reluctant to give them alms, says businessman Saroj Sabu.

Child labour in Bargarh, Padampur and other towns of this district has also doubled since the drought set in. The drop out rate in schools has goneup in rural areas to around 50 percent even as enrollment has decreased.

Many young boys are either working in the hotels and houses of local landlords as servants or have migrated with their parents to other districts, says Bijepur legislator Ashok Kumar Panigrahi.