Shelter for beggars shuts down after depleting treasury

Million-rupee welfare project failed to address the socio-economic factors which instigated begging in the first place

LAHORE:

An average commuter waiting in a gridlock might feel a humanitarian urge to alleviate the suffering of roadside beggars by offering some food or cash without realizing the fact that their well-intended gesture cannot address the root cause of the beggar’s helplessness. However, what happens when the same facile itch of magnanimity is caught by policy makers at the state-level, who end up investing millions of rupees into welfare initiatives like the Beggar’s Home, which whilst restraining beggars like a brood of hens have managed to resolve the vice of beggary no more than some petty alms offered at a traffic intersection?

In 2014, the Social Welfare Department of Punjab in collaboration with the World Bank introduced the Beggars Rehabilitation Centre located at Raiwand, which offered food, shelter, religious education, and psychological counselling to thousands of beggars, transgender persons, drug addicts and homeless persons, with the aim of helping them overcome their destitution and reintegrate into society. Hence, over the past few years, the police would cohesively remove street beggars from the footpaths and roads before admitting them at the Beggar’s Home.

“When I would beg late at night near the Gulberg area, every now and then, the police would round up against groups of beggars and would transfer them to rehabilitation centres, where they were provided with food and shelter for up to a month before being released,” recalled Nadeem, alias Dimi, a professional beggar.

In recent times however, the current government, plagued by financial constraints, has announced its decision to permanently close the welfare centre, which was once active with nearly 30 staff members, separate halls, kitchens, prayer rooms, classrooms for men and women, generators and an ambulance.

In this regard, Haseeb, the Beggar’s Home’s in-charge, confirmed that the centre was permanently closed on the orders of higher authorities.

Where some local social workers have opposed the government’s decision to close down the Beggar’s Home, which was a safe haven for impoverished citizens, sociologists like Dr Zakria Zakar were of the opinion that introducing stopgap solutions like Beggar’s Homes for combatting poverty were never the solution to the problem of beggary, to begin with.

“It is the incompetence of our social welfare institutions that they have been unable to devise a mechanism to ensure employment opportunities to those involved in begging. The very act of begging is a fundamental violation of human rights and human dignity since the written constitution of our country has been made keeping in mind the value of human rights. On the contrary, receiving alms degrades this fundamental need for dignity. As long as there is support from the public, begging cannot end. It is a systematic system that is not discussed seriously. Despite the construction of welfare homes, this process continues. This is not a legal issue, even if a law is passed on it, the practice of begging cannot be stopped since until or unless human dignity is endorsed as a value, this vice of begging will continue,” opined Dr Zakar.