In the Al-Attar neighborhood of Sidi Hussein Al-Sigoumi, one of the poor and popular neighborhoods adjacent to the Tunisian capital, "Barbache" Jamoui Bouthouri sits on a chair in a cafe to catch his breath from the fatigue of a tiring day he spent searching for plastic remains in the Shakir Tower estuary.

The café appears desolate and gloomy, as a game of table football crouched in front of its facade without meaning.

Here, my crowd got used to a rest, not indifferent to the unpleasant odors emanating from behind the walls of the Shakir Tower estuary, which stores the waste of the capital and its neighboring provinces.

Every day, this 40-year-old man begins a journey to search for plastic sheets at the mouth of Shakir Tower, ship them to a freight transport vehicle, then sell them to merchants for a small fee.

Like other "barbsha" (waste miners in Tunisia), he risks his life amid tons of hazardous waste in search of his strength.

My crowd is sitting in a cafe after a trip to search for plastic sheets (Al-Jazeera)

Bitter loaf

His frowning faces and dirty clothes indicate a bitter reality for many Tunisians, who were forced by poverty to work in arduous jobs to meet the needs of their families.

Jamoui, a father of 4 children, says that he inherited the work from his father after he interrupted his education early, in order to feed them.

A crowd turns his eyes away to see trucks passing by the wall of the mouth of the tall Shakir Tower, unloading their cargo of waste inside it.

The downstream resembles a closed and impenetrable military base, while warning signs not to film outside suggest that something suspicious is happening inside.

Jamoui says that what is happening behind the downstream walls reveals the reality of the suffering of a part of Tunisians who subsist on excreta in a reality characterized by the exacerbation of poverty and unemployment rates, the deterioration of living, and the widening of economic and social disparities, especially in light of the Corona crisis.

The unemployment rate in the first half of this year reached 18%, while more than 161,000 jobs were lost due to the Coronavirus crisis, which greatly affected the Tunisian economy, recording a negative decline of 21.6% in the second third of this year 2020.

The official statistics institute recently unveiled a study entitled "Tunisia Poverty Map" that poverty rates have risen to record levels in the landlocked areas, particularly in the center and north of the country, while poverty rates decrease in the capital, but its popular neighborhoods remain miserable.

An old woman sells tissue paper on the road in the middle of the Tunisian capital (Al-Jazeera)

The statistics of the institute confirm, based on the latest results of the national survey on spending, consumption and the standard of living of families for the year 2015, that the poverty rate in Tunisia reached 15.2%, while the rate of extreme poverty reached 3%.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Social Affairs, the number of needy or poor families is about 285,000 families, while low-income families reach about 620,000 families.

These families enjoy free treatment cards and monthly grants of no more than $ 70.

Depression of trade

Nevertheless, thousands of Tunisians remain outside social coverage, such as Khayat Hussein, who lives in a difficult social situation without a medical card, retirement or aid.

To fill his breath, he embroider car seat covers from leftover fabrics purchased from waste collectors.

Inside a narrow workshop whose walls are worn out, Hussein sits every day on a sewing machine chair, designing various shapes of car covers without reaping the fruits of his labor.

At the end of the day, he would have stacked dozens of covers inside his shop, without selling very little of them, he said.

The tailor Hussein Al-Trabelsi inside his shop in the Sidi Hussein Al-Sigoumi area in the Tunisian capital (Al-Jazeera)

The man opens his wallet in front of our lens, and a few coins appear that do not sing, indicating that his condition is tight.

This tailor has no other source of livelihood, which makes his income dependent on what he earns from his sales, which have declined in such a way that he is unable to provide for his family's food or buy his medicine.

While the Corona virus is spreading in Tunisia, claiming the lives of more than 180 people, this man's fear of infection increases due to his knowledge of the dumping of dangerous medical waste from hospitals in the mouth of Burj Shakir, where the "berberas" turn the waste without caution.

Workers accumulate daily in a truck, in harsh conditions (Al-Jazeera)

And the risks do not discourage a part of Tunisians from working in arduous professions with low wages, because of their peculiarities.

Despite the numerous traffic accidents that have claimed the lives of women workers, for years, they have continued to work in agricultural estates for low wages, which have taken on the risks of transportation.

Every day, as dawn breaks, this worker takes a rickety pickup truck to a village in the northern city of Grombalia with other women to gain a living.

She tells Al-Jazeera Net that she earns 6 dollars a day to spend on her unemployed husband and her young children.

Pensions

The conditions of retirees are not less worse in Tunisia due to the deterioration of their lives.

This situation includes Ahmed al-Talili, who was in his seventies in the past, who worked as a carpenter in a factory.

This man lives in the Mornaguia region, adjacent to the capital, in a modest house with his wife.

Although this region is not far from the capital, the infrastructure of some of its neighborhoods exposes the extent of poverty.

On one of its roads, this man drives a cart pulled by a white donkey, while his son’s young daughter accompanies him to buy gas bottles in anticipation of the fluctuations in the weather and the low temperature.

Al-Tlili blames the state's weakness and uncontrolled price manipulation (Al-Jazeera)

Ahmed, whose pension does not exceed the threshold of $ 200 a month, says that he is living in harsh conditions in light of high prices, at a time when he suffers with his wife from many chronic diseases, blaming the weakness of the state and manipulating prices without supervision.

A study published by the Institute for Strategic Studies of the Presidency of the Republic in June 2019 showed that there are 117,000 retirees in Tunisia who receive a monthly pension of 100 dinars (about $ 40), while 3% of senior retired employees are below the poverty line.