Poverty as a dreadful specter looms large on the African Continent. The movie “Everyone’s Child”, in 1996, elaborately called for immediate action against the growing number of millions of African parentless and homeless children as a fallout phenomenon of HIV Aids. The movie appealed to the conscience of the people of the world and explained how poverty broke human relations, created vulnerabilities, and seriously affected human society.
Everyone’s Child explicitly narrated the story of the destruction of relationships between the main characters of the story and based on a household of four siblings named, Itai, Tamari, Norah, and Nhamo. Both parents had already died of Aids. The villagers criminally ignored them after the traditional funerals of their parents, died with the stigma of Aids. They were left to the custody of one of their uncles “Ozias”, who was himself a small businessman, And he sold out all the leftover, small assets of the helpless family. The family, with all the relations, unfortunately, disintegrated due to the sheer pressure of abject poverty. That’s exactly how the family’s relationship evaporated in the first instance.
Itai, the eldest brother, running after empty promises of high-paying jobs, went to Harare where he was alone and penniless and eventually he inevitably joined a gang of homeless boys. That gang in all manifestations presented a picture of homeless children. Tamari, Itai’s sister who was, unfortunately, left to care for her younger brother and sister, was trapped into prostitution. Her younger brother Nhamo died in a burnt house with the remnants of toys. His unfortunate death eventually realized Uncle Ozias and fellow villagers about responsibility to help the three helpless children reconstruct their lives.
Poverty and sheer poverty made the wretched family vulnerable to all sorts of dangers. Everyone’s Child provided the viewers with no direct answers to the problems of the victim’s family. That was evident in the response of an official of an NGO who refused the villagers to help them out with the problems of that hapless family on the pretext that the problem of orphans was so rampant that local people couldn’t look to outside agencies or government for help rather they must become self-reliant. That was the absolute poverty that disintegrated family relationships and exposed him or her to all sorts of vulnerabilities.
A predator shopkeeper also trapped sister Tamari, for sexual abuse and she becomes a victim of HIV Aids. Her younger brothers were left home. While in her absence, the home got ablaze and her younger brother Nehamo was burnt to ashes. So, the family was made vulnerable due to the sheer ravages of poverty.
It can be concluded that poverty, not only creates vulnerability but it also exacerbates the vulnerability of helpless people. Poverty is a pain. Poverty is reckless. It makes people vulnerable to death, destruction, and abuse. Had the parents of these four orphans not died of HIV Aids, the children might have not separated from each other. The sister may not have been trapped in the club and become susceptible to HIV Aids.
The younger brother might have not died of fire and the whole family may have not broken up. That was the poverty that made them vulnerable and people took advantage of the situation instead of helping them out. The family might have not become so brutally vulnerable, that they got some other valuable assets other than a plow and oxen, which their uncle Oziaz had immediately sold out.
The main point of concern is that poverty badly affects society. Poverty tears off the human conscience. It takes away morality, respect, and security from human society. Poverty is a curse. Everyone’s Child, as acclaimed earlier has proved that there are more than 10 million Aids orphans on the African Continent. There are millions of homeless abandoned and displaced people in Asia and Africa due to the civil wars. The floods and droughts have made millions of people homeless and vulnerable to crimes like prostitution, murders, and dacoities. Poverty certainly affects people in all its manifestations.
Poverty is the name of a situation and process. This is a situation when an individual, family, or a community can not provide for bare minimum needs of food, clothing, shelter, and heath. It is the process when this situation causes, hunger, disease, and death. Historically poverty and affluence have coexisted in human society. The solutions to poverty always existed in human morality. The lenses of the camera have seen many times the feeding children on the breasts of dying mothers in sub-Saharan Africa.