Street vendors or fruit sellers hail from low income backgrounds
KARACHI: The fruit boycott that started Friday following a call on social media asking people to do so in order to bring down the soaring prices, saw the citizens of the metropolis unite for a cause. A campaign that was started through social media platforms including Whatsapp and Facebook was fruitful as the footfall on the streets at fruit markets was considerably low.
However, the real question is whether it was targeted at the right people? Street vendors or fruit sellers hail from low income backgrounds and, more often than not, their only source of income is the revenue they earn from selling fruits.
Therefore, the income they earn in a day, which after deducting miscellaneous expenses is bare minimum, is spent on feeding their children. Every rupee loss has a direct impact on their livelihood.
As a result, the only people at a loss towards the end of the three-day boycott won’t be the government, whose lack of regulation led to skyrocketing prices, nor the consumers, who didn’t have fruits to eat for just three days, but the poor vendors whose every penny loss leads them closer to falling on the other side of the poverty line.
At the end of the boycott, we may be able to find joy in the fact that we tried to revolt against the system and break the status quo, although that is debatable, and go on with munching on our fruits again, but all this, at the cost of someone else’s livelihood.
Sarah A Amin
Published in The Express Tribune, June 5th, 2017.
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