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| Wednesday, 17 March 2004 |
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Begging away their childhood Ground realities by Tharuka Dissanaike It is a well-known secret that begging in the city is an organized racket. Many of these so-called beggars earn much more than the minimum wage that is stipulated by labour laws- some of them raking in bigger daily profit than the average wayside 'kade' or better income than a skilled worker in a factory. Since of late, a young child has become a desired appendage to many a beggar woman on the city street. Emaciated, wasted women carrying suckling children or toddlers are now a regular sight at traffic lights, major junctions and outside posh restaurants and shopping malls. The sight has become so common now, that many of us don't really 'see' the problem- the abuse the child goes through, the hazards and the sickness that the baby is exposed to and the fact that this very act is illegal. Yes. It is as illegal as breaking into a house or stealing another's car to be begging on the roads with a child. It is a crime to force a child to become a beggar or a prostitute. On the street, there is little to prevent a child from injury, hazards and from exploitation for sexual or other purposes. By an amendment to the penal code in 1998, begging with children (persons less than 18 years of age) has been branded as a heinous criminal offence. But this explicitly forbidden act goes on merrily on the streets of the city, in broad daylight, without much obstruction from law enforcement or probation authorities. But there is a glimmer of hope. Recent reports in a Sunday newspaper pointed to two instances when young children had been taken away from begging 'mothers' by authorities, possibly the probation services. This action is not with precedent. According to the Police, since begging with children is a criminal offense, both mother and child are arrested together and produced before the Magistrate. This should be the normal practice, but according to child rights groups the law about child begging is one that is rarely implemented. If probation authorities are finally getting down to implementing the law, it should be commended. The newspaper however painted a different picture- a strange action by 'authorities' who simply appeared and took away the child from the arms of the mother- a story that unfortunately paints a sympathetic picture of a bereaved mother pining for her child. In begging, the normal societal impressions of maternal love rarely apply. It is well known that many of the women carrying babies or toddlers are not the real parents of these children. It is documented that beggar parents actually impose deformities on perfectly healthy babies to make them more 'attractive' for the purpose of begging. Babies and toddlers are an asset to begging, since they attract more sympathetic attention from passers-by. It is no secret that children thus exposed to the street from an early age forego almost everything that is precious about childhood and eventually even the change of a decent adulthood. Street children are later used for sex work, drug trafficking and thuggery- that is, if they are able to survive up to teenage. Take the case of Gamini. This 12-year old boy lived and played on the Galle Road at Mt. Lavinia, where his dumb mother was begging. One day a foreigner approached the mother and paid a considerable sum of money and took Gamini away. He used the boy to satisfy his deviant sexual cravings many times before the 'authorities' got wind of it and arrested all of them- the foreigner, the mother and Gamini. Before fleeing the country, the foreigner is reported to have stated stoically, "After all, I took that child from the street. I paid the mother." Using children for begging is a grave offense against the child. This fact should not be forgotten by those crying foul at the Probation Services for depriving beggar mothers of their children. It is truly sad to see a mother being separated from a child, especially on the grounds that she is unsuited to look after the baby. But for a moment forget the street-hardened mother. What about the child? What about his or her right to stay off the street? |
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