Surviving in the world’s poorest slums
When people think of survival stories they normally picture someone stuck in the middle of the jungle or huddled under a tree in the Arctic, but there are millions of people trapped in certain areas of the world living one long, never-ending survival story from the day they are born. It’s difficult to imagine what life would be like living in some of the poorest areas of the world, where something as simple as clean drinking water is often not an option.
When it comes to surviving in the world’s poorest slums, there isn’t a single place to choose from that is “poorer” than the others, because you can’t get less money than no money. Here are five of the world’s largest and poorest slums, where people constantly fight to stay alive.
1) Orangi Town – Pakistan
This was originally built to be a low-income residential area designed for just over 500,000 people, but due to its lawlessness and the country’s over-population problem has seen an increase to just over 2.2 million. Orangi town covers around 22 square miles of land and is located in the northern section of the city of Karachi, and up until recently has completely lacked all basic amenities. There has been a project in the area to provide basic living conditions to the people there, but so far they have only been able to affect a tiny portion of the region, with a total of 72,000 toilets being installed, but with a rapidly growing population that’s already well over 2 million, these efforts won’t make much of a difference to most.
(One of the main water systems in the slums for thousands of people)
2) Neza – Mexico
Sitting in the northeast corner of Mexico City, the district of Neza is not only incredibly poor and lacking in basic amenities, but also has a bigger problem with crime than any of the other slums. When you have a complete lack of law enforcement combined with extremely high unemployment, this often leads to a high amount of crime, but nowhere in the world has it as bad as Mexico. The most violent criminal organizations in the world are based in this country and there isn’t a single piece of land that’s free of their control and influence. Since this is the biggest slum in the capital city of a country plagued with extreme violence, it often goes without saying there’s more to worry about than no food.
(An ariel view of the slums of Neza. The area has greatly improved over the years in terms of utilities, but is still a major hotspot for violent crime and kidnapping)
Apart from struggling to find the money just to eat every day, the regular civilians of the slums go missing so often that the police simply don’t bother looking for them. these disappearances include the kidnapping of women to be forced to work in brothels, or the kidnapping of young men who are sent to training camps and forced to commit crimes under the threat of their own execution. In 2023, there were over 40,000 murders in Mexico, with the vast majority being committed by the hundreds of criminal groups around the country, all of which need a constant supply of new recruits to keep fighting, many of which come from the slums of Neza.
3) Kibera – Kenya
Kenya has always struggled with poverty and its poorest slum is a very sad place indeed. One of the advantages to the people living here is that most of the slum has electricity, but normally only in the form of lighting. Most of the houses here have been built by the people who live there from whatever they could find. There is an extreme problem with cheap drugs in Kibera, mostly in the form of solvents and altered medicines, which keep much of the population in their current conditions.
(A drinking water/ sewage/ garbage disposal site running through the slums)
When Kenya gained independence in 1963, its new government designated Kibera as an unauthorized settlement. This meant that the government wasn’t responsible for providing any of the basic amenities that people needed to live, and most of the area was still without running water, sewage systems, or any kind of professionally built structure.
4) Dharavi – India
This is known as not only the poorest but also the most overcrowded slum in India. It only covers 0.92 square miles but has a population of around 1 million people, making it one of the most densely populated areas on earth. The amount of land the slum takes up and its estimated population of 1 million people would mean that each person gets just under 2.4 sq meters of space. This is achieved by having buildings built as high as possible and sharing rooms between several people, but this is also very risky as all the buildings have been put together by untrained people using scrap materials.
The doctors operating in the area treat an estimated 4,000 cases of diphtheria and typhoid every day, and children are often seen playing in streams of sewerage and waste liquids running down the middle of the streets. Every water system close to the slum is heavily polluted, and people often turn to crime or whatever means they have to so they can bring in enough money to buy food.
5) Rocinha – Brazil
With a population of around 200,000 people, Rocinha isn’t the biggest or poorest of the slums on the list, but the entire area is heavily controlled by the various criminal groups in the country. For a long time, Brazil has been dealing with two major criminal organizations that have been fighting each other for control of the country’s illegal market. They each have hundreds of gangs working for them and nowhere is a better recruitment ground than an area where people can’t afford food.
It’s very tempting to join a group where everyone has nice clothes and isn’t hungry all the time, and there usually aren’t any alternatives. The slums aren’t recognized as official settlements by the government and don’t receive any help or basic amenities like official areas. It also means that the people living there often don’t have papers or any kind of official documentation, so they can’t get a job outside the slums even if they find one.
