Young children are forced to
adopt beggary as their profession by gangs that roam free in many cities of our
country.
Few things disrupt public life on roads and streets with more audacity than
beggars chasing people for a paltry amount of money. It is becoming an
increasingly common phenomenon to be interrupted, often insolently, while
driving a car or on foot, by a barefoot child, a seemingly healthy woman
carrying a bandaged infant, or an aging man waving a few pages of eveningers at
you. They have become a big source of distraction for the public. Most of them
shamelessly shock commuters in an attempt to generate maximum sympathy. They
have horrific appearances or disabilities that are a convenient tool for
extorting whatever little money they can, walking, limping or roller-skating
with amputated legs up and down a road all day. For some commuters it does
arouse an element of pity, while for many of them it is no more than a sickening
nuisance.
Because they wont leave alone my windshield and start cleaning it with a dirty
cloth or incessantly knock at the window, I have kept denominations of Rs500
inside my dashboard to give them as soon as they come near my car, says a
resident of Lahore.
But most people, mainly women, see these beggars as more of a blessing in
disguise than irritating entities. They find beggars to be the most readily
available recipients of charity (or sadqah nikalna) on a regular basis whenever
commuting around the city. It is often their philanthropic spirit that makes
them fork out money.
In the same spirit one woman says: My husband and I don't give money to these
women beggars, but when we see an old man we always give him because he has to
feed his entire family. People have different justifications for giving charity
to different kinds of beggars who they believe appear to be needy.
Though there is no doubt that many people resort to begging because of poverty,
at the same time they exploit their economic condition to earn a certain level
of subsistence. They employ different methods to get easy money which they can
earn standing by the roadside, often taking shelter under a tree or sitting
while the traffic signal turns green, instead of earning the same amount
laboring all day under any kind of weather conditions. This is why many
physically fit young men are usually seen begging on the streets.
If on the one hand the affluent see beggars as a medium to purifying (or
legalize) their wealth, the beggars find this occupation the easiest way to earn
a living. Hence this relationship has abetted beggary and turned it into an
organized form.
Beggary has become a profession for most of those who are part of a much larger
industry that recruits, trains and relocates men, women and children. Two things
that drive this industry are shock value and religious connotations of charity.
To increase the shock value of innocent beggars the industry, run by a menacing
mafia, has enough tricks up its sleeve. Acid and cigarette burns, amputation,
and starvation are some of them and pose a serious threat to an individual
health. Few of them affect recruits for the rest of their lives, while others
may be painful temporarily, and therefore capable of incurring maximum sympathy
only for short-term purposes. The profession, of course, has a host of
idiosyncrasies attached to it, including glue sniffing, drug abuse (even among
very young children), minor criminal tendencies, prostitution, sexual abuse and
coercion.
The people I worked for made me beg and use drugs. I was addicted to solution,
says Ansar, a boy rescued off the streets of Hira Mandi, Lahore red-light area,
by the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau set-up in 2004.
They burned my arm and my stomach with solution, so that I could beg more, he
says when inquired about a scar on his arm. The left side of his entire chest is
burnt down to his stomach. I went to a doctor in the neighbourhood who took me
to a hospital where I had to stay for a month and a half, he adds. Ansar had to
give Rs70 to Rs80 to the Mafioso everyday.
The bureau, working for the rescue and rehabilitation of destitute children, has
rescued over 500 children from the streets of Lahore as part of its pilot
project. These children have come from cities that include Kohat, Rahim Yar
Khan, Multan and Rawalpindi. There are enough recruits for the industry to be
exported from the cities of their origin without affecting the beggar population
there.
Explaining the industry modus operandi CPWB chairperson and adviser to the chief
minister on children rights, Dr. Faiza Asghar, says that beggar children earn
200-250 rupees everyday, but what happens is that either their fathers are
addicts and take away all the money or there is an intermediary mafia that takes
the children from poor parents for begging all day in exchange of providing for
the child. The mafia then keeps most part of the earning — 180 or 190 out of
200 and the child is left with only 10 rupees to take home.
Haider from Kasur is caught up in similar arrangements. He has been begging at
the Lahore Railway Station lately. I was 10 years old when I ran from home; then
Bashir Dare-ala took me, but I ran from home again, but he got hold of me one
more time. The gang took money from my family, Rs500 or sometimes Rs1,000,
saying they provide for my meals three times a day and give me shoes and
clothes, he says.
The intermediary entity of the beggar mafia exploits both the poor and the rich
taking advantage of the immense economic divide between the two in our society.
Neither gain any benefits. The poor remain eternally poor and the affluent one
money cannot reach the truly needy. In the presence of such networks in society,
the public alone cannot deal with the evil.
Recently, the Punjab government has taken steps to deal with a major group of
recruits for this industry, the children. The CPWB was set-up under the Punjab
Destitute and Neglected Children Act, 2004. It carries out periodic rescue
operations in alliance with the police squad. Over 82 operations have been
undertaken, based on information gathered from its pockets in civil society or
open reception centres operating at strategic locations where beggar children
spend time, are given temporary care and finally rescued. The bureau is given
custody of the rescued children, who are then admitted to the Child Protection
Institution where they live, attend school and play. Upon identification, the
Child Protection Court hands over custody to their parents/guardians giving them
guarantee that they will not be seen on the streets again.
Dr. Asghar claims that among the 500 children, the repeaters are only 20 who
have been seen by the patrol squad on the streets, only six of whose
parents/guardians have been fined up to Rs1,000, two jailed for three months and
two for 20 days under court orders.
In the event of rescuing children, certain gangs have been busted whose number
the bureau puts at 14. These include gangs like Kala Ungal Kaat, Zafar Urf Zafri
Karachi Wala, Ashraf Urf Kala and Imam Bakhsh Urf Nathu gangs. They have been
put behind bars or are facing trials. Counting the bureau accomplishments she
says: We have caught them from inside the sewers, from Data Darbar, supposedly
worshipping or from the Minar-i-Pakistan making children sell drugs.
However, Dr Asghar says that undertaking one massive operation clean-up would be
almost impossible because in such an operation the mafia goes underground. It
has a tight network whereby one gang instantly gets to know that a child from
another gang in a far-off locality was picked up by the authorities.
The law that prohibits beggary and gives the powers to arrest to the police has
existed for 46 years before the PDNCA. However, the increasing presence of
beggars at shrines, on the roads, or in the markets, is proof that the police
has not yet been mobilized to begin a crackdown on the mafia. Lahore operations
police chief, Amir Zulfiqar says: Dealing with beggary is definitely our
priority, but given our time constraint our priorities do change. While the
police department finds time off other pressing duties like keeping a check on
the law and order situation in the cities during the local bodies elections,
perhaps the public can do its bit by denying any amount of money to the beggars.
With their product demand gone, dons like Bashir Dare-ala might be reined in.
Courtesy: https://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag4.htm