Razia refusing marriage to raise abandoned children

‘Now my whole life is these children. I never think about getting married or not. Everything to me is these children and nothing else.’

Razia Sohto, a resident of Pir Mahalle in Tando Muhammad Khan district of Sindh, has been taking care of orphans in a three-room mud house for the past 25 years. They did not even get married to take care of these children.

35-year-old Razia told Independent Urdu that she has 20 orphans, whom she is raising by earning from sewing machine and driving her brother’s rickshaw.

Razia’s dreams were the same as any normal girl’s, to get married and lead a good life, but her life took a turning point when she was studying in the twelfth standard and she met a newborn orphan. The girl was found.

She says: ‘I dropped out of intermediate studies, I was engaged and about to get married, so at that time Nida came to me, she was two days old, I told the doctor about Nida, so he Said that this girl will not recover for the rest of her life, because she suffers from seizures and is completely disabled. This innocent girl changed my view and I took back my decision to get married for the sake of Nida and other children.’

Razia said that her mother used to take care of the orphans, but she took over after she passed away.

He said: ‘The children who are left in the garbage or thrown away by someone as illegitimate, we have the same children, who have no heirs except us.’

According to her: ‘I take care of all the children, my brother drives the rickshaw and there are two older girls who help me. I sew clothes, that’s how it goes. No one in the government, NGOs or the city helped me.’

She says that when she was in school, she dreamed of becoming a teacher and living a good life and getting married.

Razia said: ‘Every girl has her own dream in life, but I don’t have one. Not life, not anything else. To me this dream, this joy, this light, this life, love, love, everything is my children.’

She added that she will continue this work forever. ‘These are 20 children, if I get 40 more children, I will raise them too.’

Razia said that she wants her voice to reach those people, where people abandon children. “Especially disabled children or those born and thrown in the garbage, so they don’t do that.” Leave the children with us. It is my job to take care of such children.’

He said that along with these children, he also has three widows living here, whom he serves like his own mother.