TANDO MUHAMMAD KHAN, SINDH: On a hot afternoon earlier this month, a woman in her mid-thirties sat on the floor of her home in a rural town in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province as a baby girl played in her lap and children of all ages surrounded her.
Meet Razia Sahto, who runs an orphanage out of a tiny, rented house and whose philanthropic work has earned her the title of “Mother Teresa” in her hometown of Tando Muhammad Khan, after the late Albanian-Indian Catholic nun who dedicated her life to caring for the destitute and died in the slums of Calcutta.
Sahto is currently mothering 20 kids at the children’s home that was started by her mother, Zulekha Sahto, nearly two decades ago after she found a newborn baby lying on a roadside. She picked up the little girl and took her home, informing her family that she would now be her guardian.
At the time, the practice of abandoning babies near sewers and garbage heaps was on the rise in Tando Muhammad Khan, prompting Sahto’s mother to place a cradle outside her house to encourage people to leave their babies there instead of leaving them for dead in the trash. After this, several children found shelter and a new life at the Sahto family house.
After Zulekha’s death in 2021, Sahto took over the orphanage, a daunting task with many challenges.
“It has been 20 to 25 years since my mother started this work. After her death, I am doing all this work alone. I have 20 children and I am their mother and their father,” Sahto told Arab News as a toddler in her lap tugged at her red head scarf.
“This work is tough, and people criticized us a lot. Many of our relatives look at these children with hatred, and even closed the doors of their homes to us.”
A cradle, placed by Zulekha Sahto, mother of Razia Sahto, outside her house, is pictured in Sindh's Tando Muhammad Khan, Pakistan, on July 6, 2023. (AN photo)
But the desire to seek a better future for the children has kept Sahto going. Twelve of the kids were abandoned by their parents while eight came into Sahto’s care after their mothers decided to remarry. Some children were also handed over to the orphanage by parents who were too poor to raise them.
No government or private initiative similar to Sahto’s exists in Tando Muhammad Khan, social worker Jawed Halepoto said.
“During these times, when inflation is rising and people cannot feed themselves, Sahto is not only taking care of the abandoned children by feeding them but is also teaching them, which is great work,” said Halepoto.
“She is our pride, and we can say that she is the Mother Teresa of Tando Muhammad Khan and the whole of Sindh.”
To generate an income, the 35-year-old woman works as a tailor while her brother also supports her philanthropic work from earnings from driving a rickshaw. Donations of ration and clothing also help the children get by.
But Sahto said she needed more financial support from the government and non-government organizations (NGOs) to give the children a better life. On her part, the philanthropist has even decided to forgo having a personal life, including getting married, because of the responsibility of the children.
Sahto said she was engaged to be married in 2017, but when she said she would be bringing an orphan child to her future husband’s house after marriage, her in-laws rejected her request, even using derogatory words for the child. Sahto decided never to get married.
“What is the fault of these children? It is the fault of those who abandoned these children,” Sahto said, adding that she was resolved to give each child in her care the very best shot at a good life.
“I have embraced these children and am living with them as a mother. It is not the children’s fault. They are also entitled to life in this society.”
