Unfortunately, disabilities can often be used to generate income. Microcephaly affects Pakistani “rat children”. In this illness, the head and brain of children are considerably smaller than usual. According to rumours, these people’s skulls were malformed by using iron helmets when they were young in order to turn them into beggars later on.
The majority of these miserable kids live at the shrine and solicit alms from visitors.
In Pakistan, an old cruel tradition is still practised. To halt the growth of the skull, infants’ heads are covered with iron helmets. Children’s narrow faces and deformed heads gradually take on the appearance of rats. When kids get older, they are forced to beg on the streets.
The unfortunate are referred to as “chua” or “rat children.” In Pakistan, there is a belief that states you would experience failure if you refuse to give them charity.
The creepy custom has been practised for many years. According to rumours, criminal groups kidnap infants, deform them, and then send them out to beg.
It turns out that this barbaric custom has deep roots. Unhappy children are also called “Shah Daula’s rats”. Shah Daula was a 17th-century Muslim saint. He claimed to have the power to heal female infertility. But the women had to donate their firstborn to the temple so that their next children would not become disabled.
According to folk legends, the first babies born after Shah’s prayer had microcephaly. They were taken under Shah Daula’s supervision and sent to beg. Later, at Varedia, Gujarat, a temple was constructed in his honour. People have been coming here ever since to ask for the gift of children.
The question often arises in the minds of people ‘Are Rat Children a result of hard fate or cruel tradition?’ Poor parents have been abandoning newborns with malformed heads here for ages. They depend on the alms from visitors to the temple to support themselves. “Chua” are people who wear green capes and ask the public for money.
In the 1960s, the Government of Pakistan banned citizens from leaving newborn babies in the Shah Daula Temple. But soon the cruel tradition resumed. Criminals began to make money on “rat children”, sending them to the streets to beg. People continue to give them money, fearing that their own children will become disabled if they refuse alms to disabled people.
Nadia has been at the temple since she was a young child. She has no idea who or where her parents are. They claim that the girl was sold to the so-called “beggar mafia,” which makes money by exploiting disabled youngsters.
The “abode of fertility” is the name given to Shah Daula’s temple. Couples struggling with infertility continue to come here in the hopes that prayer may help them conceive. The holy place transformed into a haven for abandoned and disabled youngsters who later served as a means of earning money for criminals.
