COVID-19 reveals unequal urban citizenship in Manila, Dhaka and Delhi

“COVID-19 lockdown means starvation,” laments Lila, a street vendor in Manila, in the Philippines. Lila has previously weathered police harassment and countless evictions. But the COVID-19 crisis, she says, is a different catastrophe. In Dhaka in Bangladesh domestic worker Shamima echoes Lila’s concern: “We have to drink poison, if we cannot go out for work. Who will save us from hunger?”

These accounts reflect the sentiments of many urban informal workers in Asian megacities which have recorded a high number of cases in their countries. In Dhaka and Manila, COVID-19 cases constitute 32% of the 52,445 nationally and 59% of the 18,997 in the Philippines. In Delhi there are 20,834 cases, 10% of the country’s rising numbers. As governments scramble for an effective approach to combat the pandemic, millions of urban poor like Lila and Shamima endure its impact with limited state assistance and unjust policy enforcement.

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