TRASH DUMP BECOMES LIFESTYLE?

Lragir, Armenia
10-09-2007 14:25:44

The head of the Commission for Religious and Ethnic Minorities Hranush
Kharatyan stated September 10 at the Hayeli press club people in
Armenia might not be starving, they might borrow money to buy food
and then pay their debts, but it does not mean that poverty has been
reduced. "As quality and lifestyle, poverty has not reduced among those
people but aggravated, because people are not ashamed of being poor,
and they are not trying to hide. On the contrary, it is becoming a
lifestyle, an exhibition," Hranush Kharatyan says.

She said more and more people are spending their day at the trash
dump of Gyumri and earn their living there. Hranush Kharatyan says
these people might earn more than 20 thousand drams, the lower mark of
poverty, but they prefer the dump to cleaning the streets or working
as waiters.

Aaron Adibekyan, sociologist, who was also hosted at the Hayeli
club, said in every country there are people who live at the dump,
the form is different. Adibekyan says a homeless American won the
dispute against the authorities of New York who made him wash once
a month. He thought it was a violation of human rights.