Abstract

This research explores the psychosocial challenges faced by rural Pakistani women in the wake of their migration to the city. A focus group and ten in-depth interviews were conducted with women from a migrant household. The study revealed that migrant women's frustration of unmet needs, the stress of unfulfilled expectations along with pressing socio-economic circumstances paves the way for a range of psychological problems like hopelessness, demoralization, lack of motivation, shame, social withdrawal and isolation, psychosomatic complaints anxiety and depression. The findings revealed that Persistent poverty does not only affect the psychological well-being of these migrant women but also keeps them trapped in impoverishment. It also highlighted that the psychosocial challenges for these migrant women increase twofold in the urban settings as they are compelled to exist on the margin of the margins as the poorest of the poor.

Keywords

Migration, Poverty, Psychological, Rural Women.

Introduction

Migration is a multi-faceted phenomenon (Laliotou, 2004) and has been reported to be a bittersweet experience for those experiencing it (Alarcón & Garzón, 2011; de Haas & van Rooij, 2010; Yabiku, Agadjanian, & Sevoyan, 2010) where economic impacts of migration are as vital as the psychological and social consequences. There has been extensive research on economic, cultural, sociological and psychological consequences migration, yet this paper sheds new light on the psychology of forced migration due to poverty in a post-migration urban setting. This study will help in understanding the intricate interlocking web of economic deprivation and the psychosocial challenges faced by these rural migrant women who are compelled to abandon their place of origin and head to the destination presumed as the promised land of opportunity with hopes of a better life in terms of better employment, health, education facilities.

There is a wealth of literature on migration and poverty which discusses population mobility in the developing world. This research acknowledges that migration is a complex phenomenon occurring over a wide variety of spatial and temporal contexts and for many materials and nonmaterial reasons (Waddington & Wheeler, 2003) The term migration has a long history and can either indicate movement from one country to another or only a movement from rural areas of a country to thriving cities and districts. The latest century has seen a significant increase in migration from countries with developing economies to industrial countries (Arendt, Nielsen, & Jakobsen, 2012; Naveed-i-Rahat, 1990; Sheikh et al., 2012). The world is steadily becoming more urban, as people move to cities and towns in search of employment, educational opportunities and higher standards of living. Some are driven away from land that, for whatever reason, can no longer support them (UNFPA, 1999).

As cited in Walker et al. (2013), poverty manifests itself as material deprivation and often leads to poor physical and mental health, restricted social and economic mobility, social isolation and powerlessness. Severe poverty may 'force' people to undertake permanent migration, potentially aggravating deprivation and vulnerability where there is no insurance against livelihood failure.

^*Assistant Professor, Department of Peace & Conflict Studies, National Defense University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Email: riffathaque@hotmail.com

^†Assistant Professor, Department of Gender and Women Studies, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

^‡Lecturer, Department of Psychology, National Institute of Psychology, Quaid I Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Empirical evidence in psychology has established that living in poverty has a devastating effect on the psychological well-being of adults and children (Haan & Rogaly, 2002). It contributes to the development of a wide range of psychopathology (Miech et al., 1999). Among poverty-stricken individuals, the constant presence of stress and anxiety can lead to a number of physical and psychological disorders. Williams (2010) argued that the focus of existing in a state of constant worry and struggle for survival hampers positive psychological development. Stress has been linked with health issues like cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, increased risks for certain cancers, weakening of the immune system which causes more frequent sickness and chronic ailments (State Government of Victoria, 2010). Williams (2010) examined the relationships between socio-economic status, poverty-related stress and psychological functioning and confirmed that high levels povertyinduced stress is positively correlated to high incidence and intensity of anxiety and depression. Santiago (2011) theorizes that the stress of the instability of poverty eats away at one's emotional stability. In circumstances of poverty, people suffer greatly from a lack of fulfilment, enrichment, and an array of psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression. If left untreated, stress and anxiety can lead to depressive symptoms like insomnia, loss of energy, restlessness, suicidal thoughts, feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, weight loss or gain, and a reduced ability to concentrate or think clearly.

Theoretical Framework

This study enriches an existing theoretical framework The Poverty Traps Model theorized by Bowles, Durlauf, and Hoff (2004) by adding the psychological dimension of poverty to it. The model suggested that poverty traps are mechanisms that could cause poverty to persist. The poverty trap is operationalized here as a mechanism which makes it very difficult for people to escape poverty. There are three kinds of tenets to explain the persistence of poverty: Critical thresholds, Dysfunctional

institutions, and Neighbourhood effects. The critical thresholds depend on the environment that the individual lives in one and needs to reach these critical thresholds in order to escape the poverty traps. The political forces or major social interactions which could be responsible for entrapment of a whole nation in poverty due to inequality in power and wealth are the dysfunctional institutions. Neighbourhood effects are a set of influences which exist when a person retains membership of a certain group. These effects could be determined or dynamic like one's race or the economic class.



Method

Research Objectives

The main aim of the study is to attempt to examine the psychosocial challenges faced by migrant women in the wake of rural to urban migration and their persistent poverty.

Sample

The sample of ten women belonging to the migrant households was selected from Meherabad, a

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suburban slum in the G-11 sector of Islamabad capital territory through convenient sampling. The research locale was selected because of its predominant presence of rural to urban migrants. The majority of the population is involved in low paid, informal labour or service-providing sector. Most of the women who have migrated to Islamabad along with their family's hail from rural Punjab namely Faisalabad, Jhang, Sargodha, Sheikhopura, and Toba Tek Singh, while two interviewees belonged to Abbottabad of Khyber Pukhtoonkhuwa province. The sample consisted of very young to elderly women, and their ages ranged from 17 to 60 years. The education level ranged from completely illiterate to middle, i.e. eighth standard of school education. All the women in the sample were engaged in unregulated paid work as domestic helpers except two women who were unemployed. The marital status of the sample varied from married, divorced, widowed and remarried too. All the women in the sample had children except one interviewee who had migrated especially to undergo fertility treatment at that time. The women in the sample had a minimum number of children was four, and the maximum was six; Some of the women were living in a nuclear family set up while others in the joint family set up. The time elapsed since the migration of these women ranged between 6 months to more than 20 years.

Instrument

The interview protocol was developed by combining previous research about women and the struggles of urbanization and the objectives of the current research. It was designed to facilitate an unstructured interview experience and was informed by the relevant literature around urbanization and its psychosocial challenges. The semi-structured interview was designed to yield detailed information about the variables of research interest and demographic biodata as well. The interview questions concentrated on core issues defining the objectives of the current research, i.e. the migrants' expectations of a prosperous life after moving to the city, their actual socio-economic situation at the moment and the detail of their struggles in the urban environment.

Procedure

The participants were contacted through a key informant in the locale, who has explained the purpose of research. The sample was also informed about the aims of the research, and their consent was gained. Research data was collected through multiple approaches like Focus group discussion and indepth interviews. Initially, a focus group discussion was held with a sample of eight women. The issues identified through the findings of the focus group discussion provided the foundation for the open-ended Interview questions. The interviews were conducted in the homes of the respondents over a period of 2 weeks. The extended time was spent in rapport development, so each session lasted between 90- 120 minutes. The interviews were conducted as an informal discussion so that the respondents were more open and comfortable in sharing detailed information.

Analyzing Data

Interviews and focus groups were taped, transcribed, and translated by the researchers. The interviews questions are considered the coding frame, and units of analysis is the responses given by the interviewees. The data was then subjected to thematic analysis. The transcribed data were coded with the help of a traditional method of colour coding. Following the research questions as guides, the text was searched and coded. Different colours of highlighter pens were used to distinguish each code by a separate colour, and each code denoted a category. After identification of the main themes, the remaining data were re-coded.

Results

Although rural migrants are lured to the cities in search of the greener pastures yet the reality in the cities for them is far from their expectations of a better life. The socio-economic challenges in the urban environment like lesser opportunities to decent housing and livelihood, poor access to health and education services, and lack of access to public transport act as impediments to the economic

development of these migrants and further reinforce their poverty. The lack of basic facilities, better opportunities and individual initiatives to break the vicious cycle keep migrants trapped in poverty.

Given below are the descriptions of each theme which emerged and the experiences of the participants about the overlapping factors which act as the poverty traps for these rural migrants in their new urban environment.

Socio-economic and Psychological Challenges

Housing Issues

Housing is a significant challenge facing migrant women and their families. Rented accommodation is usually very confined. The basic structure of the house could be kachaa (mud) or pukka (cemented) depending upon the financial situation of the tenants. Each house in the slum has a small room, a tiny kitchen and bathroom; since all of the rooms are windowless, the house is poorly lit and badly ventilated. This tiny, cramped, dark house is usually inhabited by a family of 4-5 children with parents and in some cases even a few additional relatives. A single room is their only space to eat, work or study, sleep and entertain visitors.

There is obviously insufficient space for the inhabitants, so issues of personal privacy and comfort arise. The adults have no space for their intimate needs, and the kids don't have space to play and chat freely. There is no provision for recreational activities inside the house, and the environment outside is usually not very safe or child friendly. In the evenings when the kids want to watch T.V., play games or chat, especially when the parents return tired from work, they are told to sit quietly or go out. While the boys might head out in the street to play, girls or young women do not have the same privilege. They are required to stay at home and keep themselves busy in housework.

Basic Facilities Issues

In most cases, these houses don't have basic facilities like running water, gas or a sewerage system. Women have to fetch water from the nearest communal taps to do dishes, clean clothes, laundry and personal hygiene. Since there is no gas, many households buy wood as fuel or collect papers or pieces of rags from trash to burn as fuel. In some cases, relatively well-to-do migrants buy gas cylinders which are costlier than wood or rags. Since cooking with gas is expensive and cooking with other fuel options is less efficient, food is cooked only once a day, in the evening. However, the houses have electricity which is often provided at a premium by the landlord. The tenets are not given a written bill; instead, the landlord verbally informs them to pay a certain amount, which, especially in summers, is unusually high. The interviewees revealed that if the tenants protest or express their concern, they are asked to evacuate the premises within the next 24 hours. The "take it or leave it" approach of landlords in the community renders migrants more insecure and vulnerable. They are forced to request loans to pay bills, which leads to an additional financial burden. Their low incomes prevent them from paying back the loans on time; hence the amount of loaned money gets compounded the manifolds by interest on the previous ones and new debts too. Migrants become caught in a vicious cycle of borrowing and inability to pay back poverty prevails.

Diet and Nutrition Issues

The migrants in this study subsisted on a staple diet of bread made out of wheat flour. The breakfast is usually sweetened tea with leftover bread, and there is usually no lunch and dinner consist of small amounts of lentils or vegetables accompanying wheat bread or occasionally rice. Poultry and dairy products are consumed very rarely whereas or meat, fruit or sweets are thought of as special food only to be consumed on rare occasions like weddings or religious festivals. The families are typically malnourished, especially the women and children. It was observed that many infants in these households who appeared to be extremely malnourished were being fed, instead of milk, the tea whitening powdered milk, which while cheaper than milk has little nutritional value. At mealtimes firstly men, the primary breadwinners, are served the best portion of food, and then the children are fed. Whatever little food is left is consumed by the woman regardless of whether she contributes financially to the household. It was learnt that despite minimum household income and financial difficulties, the men often end up spending money on cigarettes, alcohol or drugs, which are the only entertainment they can afford. At times substance use is employed as a way of stress management.

Commute Issues

Interviewees revealed various problems related to transportation and commuting to work. Due to limited public transport networks in the area and lack of personally owned transport, the prospects of work, study, leisure and access to health services for migrants are compromised. The poor accessibility to good quality schools, colleges and workplaces render theses migrants more marginalized especially the young girls and women who are discouraged from travelling outside their vicinity alone due to the cultural restrictions.

Women who work as domestic helpers usually try to find work close to home because what public transport is available is costly; they prefer to walk to work to save the fare. The peripheral residential areas close to these slums offer lower wages for the same work when compared to the better off and more central areas, due to the ready supply of cheap labour. The normal wage rate is higher in the central areas, but since these women can't access those better paid and diverse jobs due to commuting problems, therefore, they are forced to continue in their present conditions. One of the women shared that she was offered to work as a cook in a well-to-do household which was even willing to provide her with transportation to and from, but the woman turned down the offer. Her husband feared that when the neighbours saw her being driven in a car, they would assume that she was involved in "immoral economic activities" like prostitution and sex trade. Therefore, it was found that some social and cultural factors help to maintain the poverty of these poor migrants. Even though if they are offered better wages and working conditions, yet certain cultural norms like conservative mindset discourage them to work in a male-dominated and urban modern environment.

In the same way, young girls or women of the area are discouraged from going to quality educational institutions because of the lack of safe and affordable public transport even If the girls are educated, they are usually sent to the schools which are most affordable and based within their locality. Due to commute problems, female migrants tend to neglect minor ailments and avoid seeking medical help at public hospitals. They either ignore their symptoms or see local doctors lacking official qualifications for quick remedy when the symptoms worsen. Using public transport to go to a governmental hospital, waiting in endless queues for hours without any assurance of getting a consultation that day is not worth the trouble. Poor health contributes to their inability to work consistent hours to pay the bills, which contributes to the family's spiral into debt and lack of respect in the household. Commute and transport issues then contribute directly to the cycle of poverty and contribute to the psychological pressures of women specifically among migrant communities. This finding reinforces the basic argument of the study that poor mental health caused by poverty becomes a source of maintaining the impoverished conditions of these poor migrants.

Livelihood Issues

Since most of the women are employed as poorly paid domestic helpers or service providers, their wages are unregulated. There are no benefits or wage increment increase as a result of inflation. The wages are not responsive or proportionate to the state of the economy or the price of goods. Therefore, even after putting in 8 to10 hours of hard work six days a week, most of these women find it difficult to feed their families. Since these women typically come from rural backgrounds, where they have learned agricultural skills like farming and cattle rearing, they are not equipped with any education or vocational skills valued in an urban context. Resultantly they are often only able to qualify for unskilled labour, often as domestic servants, and aa result of their low paid work, these women become increasingly vulnerable to exploitation of various forms. Respondents have had to accept unreasonably low wages, work unpaid overtime, endure unsafe working conditions and endure verbal or sexual harassment in some cases.

Occupational segmentation based on the ethnic, racial and religious differences is also an issue for some Christian migrants. The opportunities for employment for Christians are further compromised because most migrants hailing from a Christian religious background are deemed suitable as services providers in the sanitation sector only.

Health Issues

The health services in public hospitals leave much to be desired. At these overcrowded and understaffed medical facilities, the ailing patient often endures long waits for the consultation. Often after an unsatisfactory quick visit in and out of the doctors' office, they are handed a long prescription of usually unaffordable medicines without any explanation of the treatment or the disease itself. At times even after waiting all day long for their turn, respondents reported having to leave without medical consultation. Diseases like malaria, diarrhoea, typhoid, and hepatitis are common in this population due to unhygienic living conditions. Among migrant women ailments like anaemia, weakness, over fatigue and a general feeling of malaise are common results of malnutrition, work overload, psychological stress, consecutive pregnancies and childbirth and untreated common infections and diseases. The distress of chronic bad health and poverty pave the way for various mental and psychological problems like stress, depression, anxiety and psychosomatic disorders like chronic fatigue syndrome, somatization disorders, somatic pains and aches etc. Other stress-induced diseases like cardiovascular, hypertension, diabetes is also reported in these women.

Ill physical and mental health has been established as a very significant factor in poverty persistence because it renders the ill person physically unfit for high levels of productivity resulting in low income and further poverty hence strengthening the argument that poor mental health along with physical health issues hampers the effort of the poor to break free from the vicious cycle of poverty.

Education Issues

Since affordable schools, public or private, are not present in the vicinity these migrants' parents prioritize male education. Since boys are considered future breadwinners, their education or vocational training is valued over that of girls who are deemed as a burden which has to be shifted or "married off" somewhere else. Despite financial constraints, some parents manage to send their male children to school, however inadequate; however, girls are given few opportunities to gain formal or vocational education in any form. They are encouraged to take on domestic responsibilities in the absence of working mothers; they perform domestic chores and look after younger siblings and elderly ailing grandparents in some cases. These girls assume responsibilities of caring for others so prematurely they tend to suppress their physical and emotional needs. Putting others' needs before their own is unconsciously preparing them to sacrifice their rights for others; therefore, their dietary, educational, health and all other needs are always catered in the end. Hence such discriminatory attitudes unconsciously lay the foundation for the feminization of poverty is laid at a very early age which places these women at the margins of an already marginalized existence. In a migrant household, a young girl revealed that she loved going to school but stopped going when her elder sister got married. She was put in charge of the house while her parents were at work. She expressed keenness in learning how to design and stitch clothes but also shared her doubts at having the possibility of this opportunity-these challenges of gender discriminatory practices in education feed into the vicious cycle of poverty.

Shame and Appearances

Migrant women feel a sense of pressure to keep up appearances to family and friends in the rural community from which they have moved, and within the new urban community. When preparing for visits home, or for visiting relatives, interviewees spent large amounts of money, to the extent of taking out loans, to present an image of relative prosperity to those visiting. This large outlay of money is motivated by a sense of shame associated with poverty in the urban context; having left behind a large community in the urban environment with high expectations, they feel pressure to prove their success by demonstrating wealth. In one case, a female migrant interviewee and her husband both sold a kidney in order to pay off a large loan and so avoid the shame of being hounded by a money lender. The money lender's accusations of defaulting on a loan would have brought shame upon the family, so here we see a considerable physical toll posed by the pressure to appear prosperous. In this model, the unmet expectations become not a product of the imperfect urban infrastructure or the environment but instead become the exclusive responsibility of the migrants. Failure to be prosperous indicates a personal failing in this mindset.

In the present study it was found that due to the shame of unfulfilled expectations, the migrant's concealment of real socio-economic circumstances or tall tales of success in the city generates false expectation and negative peer effects, encouraging more poor people from their kin and family to migrate from the villages. This finding is supported by previous a study of Kothari (2002) Migration myths or exaggerated accounts of achievement at destination stimulate flows and further intensify problems of oversupply of labour in destination regions, leading new migrants to suffer from inadequate housing and employment and remain or become more vulnerable. The poor feel mostly feels a sense of shame and guilt, believing that they had both failed themselves by being poor and that others view them as failures (Walker et al., 2013). In some cases, the pretence or concealment is an attempt of the poor to distance themselves from the stigma of poverty therefore at times this façade leads the migrants to seek loans as financial assistance in order to keep up the appearance or the pretence on their occasional visits to their native village. The pretence often lands them into a significant amount of debt which is cumulative and has a knock-on effect over time. This finding is also strengthened by Shildrick and Taylor (2011).

It was found that there is limited or complete lack of social activities in the lives of these poor women due to the scarcity of resources, to avoid expenditure or spare themselves the embarrassment of their poverty. Shame leads to a partial and at times complete withdrawal from social life. This might be related to the scarcity of resources, but it might be construed as a deliberate effort to lessen the likelihood of experiencing shame if the actual socio-economic circumstances are disclosed at a social event. Walker et al. (2013) posit whether the social isolation was an intended result, the consequence of being shunned by other people, a symptom of depression possibly triggered by poverty (or perhaps something else), or a combination of all three. Therefore, similarly, in our study, the social isolation factor warrants for further exploration in detail. Another relevant finding of the study is that the psychological consequence of poverty like shame actually hampers the effort to improve the living standards by creating a lack of motivation and low self-esteem. This finding is also supported by Sen (1983), who argues that shame is pernicious because it leads to a lack of selfesteem, and ultimately that saps the will to get on and do something. You retreat into yourself and let go of the people around you who could help. A study conducted on poverty and shame by Walker et al. (2013) also appears to confirm that the negative consequences of shame implicate it as a factor in increasing the persistence of poverty. They argued that shame is invariably related to poverty leading to pretence, withdrawal, self-loathing, othering, despair, depression a, thoughts of suicide and generally to reductions in personal efficacy.

Increased Domestic Violence

The women shared that they experienced domestic violence majorly as a consequence of financial constraints like unemployment and poverty. It was also noted that in households where problems of substance abuse in the men are present the tensions related to financials strains is further aggravated. In such households, these financial tensions lead to conflict and domestic violence leading to severe psychological and emotional issues for the families. Along with the financial tensions, substance abuse and anti-social behaviours like aggression, another important contributory factor of aggravated violence in such households could be the absence of extended family and kin's involvement in their life after migration. The family and relatives used to play a very important social role as shock absorbers/ buffers and keepers of the peace between the couple. The lack of family or social support in their environment after migration renders the women more disempowered because they feel insecure and unsafe. In the unfamiliar surroundings the women tend to depend increasingly on the husband, and at times now the more powerful men use violence to gain control and compliance in the household without having to worry about the repercussions liked admonition or social boycott from the families. It was noted that women who were contributing to family income experienced less violence than the ones who were not employed because of their financial contribution towards the family ensures a better social position.

Discussion

This paper explores the psychosocial implications of poverty in a sample of poor women in a postmigration scenario. Persistent poverty does not only affect the psychological well-being of these migrant women but also sets various critical psychosocial dynamics in motion, which further feed the vicious cycle of poverty.

The psychological dimension highlighted by this case study integrates a theoretical framework, the poverty traps model, proposed by Bowles, Durlauf, and Hoff (2006). Moreover, it also enriches Walker's model of psychosocial dimensions of poverty (Walker et al., 2013). The study points out that psychopathology is not only an effect of poverty but contributes towards further persistence of poverty by aggravating low self-esteem, demoralization, hopelessness, powerlessness, social withdrawal, and feelings of inadequacy and shame.

The basic finding of the study reinforces an established link that the socio-economic deprivation affects psychological well-being. Therefore, the lack of basic necessities, infrastructures and public welfare system seems to have a significant bearing on the mental and psychological health of these women. This finding agrees with previous literature where Mohanty and Misra (2000) maintained that the perceived states of Poverty lie at the nexus of the subjective experience of being poor but also in the objective socio-economic reality's income, class, caste, housing, nutrition health and other socioeconomic conditions.

This study revealed that poor socio-economic conditions have serious psychosocial fallout on the individuals who are experiencing it. This finding is consistent with previous literature that living with persistent poverty is devastating for one's psychological health and poverty-related stress is directly related to anxiety, depression and anti-social behaviours (Santiago, Wadsworth, & Stump, 2009).

The study revealed that though the socio-economic stressors clearly contribute to psychosocial problems among the poor, most of these women are doubly disadvantaged after migrating to the cities because they are faced with worsened economic exclusion as well as social exclusion. Social exclusion is aggravated by limited resources, reduced mobility and scarcity of social support networks in the urban setting. In a society like Pakistan's, where the welfare state is completely absent, the social support networks like family and kin are significant to the survival of an individual. This finding corresponds to previous literature, where Haan (1999) reported that poverty may induce people to migrate in order to improve their livelihoods but may, in turn, result in them becoming further impoverished and more vulnerable through the loss of social capital.

The study also noted that these migrant women's physical and psychological well-being is further affected when their needs are considered less in terms of priority and urgency and their access to equal opportunities and rights is compromised in the context of the feminization of poverty, which is the growing female share of the population living under the poverty line.

According to reports by the United Nations Development Programme, it is implicated that no country treats women as well as men. Therefore, the women are now termed as poorest of the poor (As cited in Khan, 2012). Moghadam (2005) argues that since feminization is a process, women are prone to suffer greater and longer forms of poverty, and the poverty suffered by women is far more severe than men are rising disproportionately. The issue of poverty of time becomes extremely pronounced due to the difficult living conditions and scarce resources in their new urban settings. Household chores like cooking and cleaning become more tedious and time-consuming due to the difficulties in acquiring basic amenities like water and fuel in these urban slums. Getting to work in the absence of public and affordable transport from these suburban slums is also a problem which affects these women; they walk long distances to and from work, which is more time consuming and physically challenging but inversely financially rewarding. Such insufficiency of basic facilities consequently makes life more difficult for these women rather than bringing the conveniences that they had been expecting from the city life.

It was also found that the feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness about the improvement of their constant financial difficulties had affected even the young women in these migrant households as well. They were demoralized and dejected, seemed to have resigned to their fate and quit any hope for betterment. This is also in agreement with Walker et al. (2013) reported that the poor often had a sense of resignation and the feelings that the forces against them were too great to be meaningfully challenged.

Conclusion

The study confirms that the stress of unmet needs and unfulfilled expectations along with pressing socio-economic circumstances pave the way for a range of psychological problems. These psychological challenges are not only the effects of poverty, but they might actually act as a reinforcing element to the loop of poverty along with other forms of poverty traps. The vicious cycle of deprivation without upward mobility sets various critical psychosocial dynamics in motion, which further feed the vicious cycle of poverty hence keeping them entrapped in a bottomless well of impoverishment. Therefore, it can be implied that these psychological consequences adversely contribute to the persistence of poverty by actually becoming a barrier in trying to evade poverty and acting as another kind of a poverty trap.

Recommendations

• Acknowledgement and registration of the presence of such unregulated migrant population and localities at the governmental level.
• Recognize the positive contribution of slums in providing a human resource in the sustenance of affluent localities.
• Accept these slums as the newly emerging urban reality and try to reorganize these underdeveloped settlements into self-sufficient urban localities rather than trying to eradicate them completely.
• Urging governmental to prioritize and plan for the developmental needs of the poor migrants forced to reside in these unregulated localities with special emphasis on sensitivity towards gender and socio-economic class in urban design.
• The government should strive towards urban management based on coordination of local body administration, NGOs and community groups for the provision of essential services to these slums.

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