Elderly being forced out of family homes to live on streets

Curious, I asked my friend to stop the bike and walked closer to confirm my impression. Under a thin piece of ragged bed sheet – to my astonishment – lay a wrinkled old lady shivering herself to sleep.

That was the first encounter with Kadheeja Adam (or Shiraanee, as she prefers to be called), an elderly woman living alone on the streets of Male’.

For almost five years, she says, her home has been the streets surrounding the market. She survives on handouts from the local vendors, and occasional offerings from sympathetic passersby. She showers in the pay toilets around the block. Dressed modestly in dirty and frayed clothes, she keeps her few belongings tucked closely to her as she sleeps on the sheltered corner of a storehouse gate near the market.