Foreign Remittances Changing Rural Pakistani Lifestyles

The children have Swatch watches, branded sports shoes and other symbols of affluence. In obvious contrast, their mother and paternal grandparents, with whom they live, still dress in the simple cotton clothes of poverty. She regards the refrigerator, flat-screen television set and air-conditioner in their house with a wariness akin to suspicion. Regular remittances sent home by the children’s father, Anwar, who works as an electronic repairman in Norway, have brought a change in the family’s fortunes.