Poverty level increases when people from rural areas relocate to urban areas, says the executive director of NGO Diva for Equality, Noelene Nabulivou.
She said statistics showed there was a high level of poverty in the informal settlements in urban areas.
“When we look at the statistics that come from the national statistics office, we know that there are high rates in all of the 40 informal settlements that we have,” Ms Nabulivou said.
“We know that poverty increases as people come from the rural to the urban areas.”
She said a high percentage of people in the LGBTQI group were also unemployed.
“Almost 99 per cent in this network is under-employed or unemployed.
“So that tells you that there is a social problem there for LGBTQI people.”
Ms Nabulivou said a lot of young people were also found earning less.
“With this small amount of money, they have to look after a large kinship network.
“They might have to look after their grandparents, their aunties or uncles who are unemployed.
“In some households, you might have one person earning, and he is responsible for looking after 10 people.
“So, poverty to us is a very interesting thing because I think we have to be careful on how we define it.
“It’s desegregation, what we call intersectionality.
“All different identities have different experiences of wealth.”
