Pakistan is home of millions Afghan refugees, who are battling with multiple challenges during their stay in the host county. Being poor, marginalized and uneducated most of them are forced to engage in low-status jobs to put bread on their table. This paper is an attempt to understand the life experiences of the Afghans who are living away from their country of origin and working as scavengers. To get the true essence of individuals’ experiences, the phenomenology research approach was used. Full-time adult Afghan scavengers were involved in this study conducted from April-August 2016 through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Whereas in-depth interviews along informal discussions continued till the data achieved its saturation point. Only male adults were interviewed as per the Afghan culture women are not allowed to engage in scavenging activities. To purely explore the social aspect of Afghans’ life as scavengers, this report focuses on their relation with two extremely influential social groups (i) family and (ii) peer group, based on their daily interaction with them. The findings of the study reveal that family being the most significant unit of scavengers’ life provide continuous social, moral and economic support. Apart from that friends and peer groups also help and encourage them whenever it is needed. The findings of the study not only give an insight into the refugees’ lives in Pakistan but also contribute to the pre-exiting body of knowledge on the subject.
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In-Text Citation: (Malik, Lyndon, Chin, Sarmila & Rahim 2018)
To Cite this Article: Malik,B., Lyndon, N., Chin, Y.W., Sarmila, M.S. & Rahim, M.H.A. (2018). The Social Life Experiences of Afghan-Refugee Scavengers in Gujrat, Pakistan.International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(13) Special Issue: Community Development & Social Mobility, 178-–187.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
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