Invisible People, Visible Barriers 19 vaccinations.39 The Government has made no effort to spread awareness or conduct testing for COVID-19 in these areas.40 Most people’s first exposure to information about COVID-19 is through WhatsApp and the stories on it are often rife with conspiracy theories and general misinformation.41 The problems in accessing healthcare go beyond COVID-19. Most of the inhabitants of Machar Colony are fishermen or shrimp peelers.42 Their livelihoods depend on seasonal, low-income jobs; they are unable to get other work due to the lack of legal documents. Unsafe drinking water, lack of sewerage, improper waste disposal in proximity to the settlement and lack of affordable healthcare providers has resulted in many deaths from preventable diseases like dengue and the chikungunya virus.43 For the residents of Machar Colony, healthcare is unaffordable.44 In most cases, stateless people rely on each other by taking loans from other members of the community to pay for healthcare. In Machar Colony, the estimated cost of medical help from private health centres per visit is PKR5,000 (about USD30);45 the estimate includes doctors’ fees and the cost of medicine. For maternity care, costs are usually not incurred as most people choose to deliver their babies at home without the presence of any medically trained professionals. A delivery at a private hospital costs anywhere from PKR15,000 to PKR30,000 (approximately USD85 to USD170).46 Public hospitals either turn the pregnant mothers away due to lack of documentation or do not provide satisfactory care and require the patient to bring someone to be with them at all times, which is often not possible for these low-income working families. In consequence, most people choose to give birth at home or go to untrained or unlicensed professionals, which has led to the passing of many mothers and infants.47 DISCUSSION The state’s insistence on maintaining that Bengalis are foreigners has affected research and advocacy for this community. Academics are hesitant to conduct 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 Javed (n 8). Haniya Javed, ‘How Worse Can Coronavirus Be for Us?’, Asia Democracy Chronicles (online, 6 August 2021) <https://adnchronicles.org/2021/08/06/how-worse-can-corona-befor-us>, archived at <perma.cc/64WV-D2CH>. ‘Misinformation Mitigating Policies and Practices Compared: Lessons from South Africa’ (Research Brief, AHA! Awareness with Human Action, 2022) 3. Shah (n 9); Gazdar (n 5) 163. Raza (n 27) 30. Xari Jaril, ‘50 Years of Statelessness: The Bengalis of Macchar Colony’, Voicepk (online, 26 December 2021) <https://voicepk.net/2021/12/50-years-of-statelessness-the-bengalis-ofmacchar-colony>, archived at <perma.cc/57B2-LTR3>. Murad Moosa Khan, ‘Private Healthcare in Pakistan — Costly, Unregulated and Predatory’, The Express Tribune (online, 18 November 2019) <https://tribune.com.pk/ article/90951/private-healthcare-in-pakistan-costly-unregulated-and-predatory>, archived at <perma.cc/AGF7-JKK2>. Hospital charges for delivery are listed in several not-for-profit hospitals in Karachi: see, eg, ‘Normal Delivery’, Indus Hospital & Network (Web Page, 2022) <https://indushospital.org.pk/donate/normal-delivery>, archived at <perma.cc/FQ4P-2U5G>; ‘How You Can Help’, Lady Dufferin Hospital (Web Page, 2020) <https://www.ladydufferinhospital.org/how-to-help>, archived at <perma.cc/7RGK-VMVE>. Nusrat Shah et al, ‘Home Deliveries: Reasons and Adverse Outcomes in Women Presenting to a Tertiary Care Hospital’ (2010) 60(7) Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association 555, 556–58. 291