T he dark shadows under Karim Mustafa's eyes, his sallow skin and cracked hands, bear witness to a double life. In daylight hours, with one assistant, he glues and stitches children's shoes from a dark alley recess in the Cairo slum of Manshiet Nasser. At night he works at a public hospital to bring in E£220 a month.

In his Dickensian struggle to support a wife and two daughters he rarely gets to see daylight. Rents are going up - Karim's cobbler's den, little bigger than a broom-cupboard, costs E£150 a month. Slender margins from selling shoes, which once doubled his state salary, are eroding.