Professional beggars use children to earn alms by mutilating and making them disabled, therefore, citizens should discourage giving cash to such people, Punjab Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) chief said on Thursday.
“Give the beggars cooked food or water, rather than giving them cash,” said CPWB Chairperson Sara Ahmad adding “the strategy can affect the income of criminal gangs involved in begging.”
CPWB has launched an anti-beggar drive in an attempt to make the cities free of professional alms-seekers, Ahmad said.
She said the members of civil society have launched an awareness campaign against beggary on social media, focusing on protecting children from being abused and exploited by gangs running beggary networks.
Shedding light on the horrifying aspect of professional begging rackets, she explained that the begging culture is not as simple as it seems. There are criminal clans of organised crime like a mafia, running the beggary network with clearly defined turfs.
These clans are involved in other crimes like drugs and human trafficking too. There are police reports that beggars have cheated innocent young women into their trap, kidnapped and sold them to human traffickers.
“Most of the children you see begging on streets had been kidnapped and sold as infants and toddlers and then mutilated to become a convenient tool to earn money from wherever they can,” the CPWB chairman added.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 19th, 2021.
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