By: Umer Kaimkhani
Begging has become a disastrous social issue in Pakistan from the past few years. No matter where you go in Pakistan, mostly urban areas, you will find thousands of beggars in every corner of the city. Poverty is already an issue in Pakistan, but this case is a little bit different.
People beg because they don’t have money to buy food for themselves, some beg because they are left with no other option and it even forces them to steal.
According to a survey, it is estimated that there are around 25 million beggars in Pakistan. Just imagine waiting for the signal to turn green and you are already surrounded by a group of 4-5 people who are constantly knocking on your window until you move away or until you give them some amount. It gets really annoying and sad at the same time because we don’t know who to blame.
The government has failed to implement policies that would help to eradicate or even strengthen the public in poverty. We don’t even know who really needs money and who is faking it. This issue has been influencing the jobless to beg because some beggars have estimated to earn a handsome amount of money per day by begging, more than an average job person earns during a month.
Day by day, we see new faces every day, knocking at our doors, car windows, or where ever you have exposure with them. These people can be innocent who actually need the money, or none other than the Begging Mafia. Let me tell you what is happening outside on the streets.
It starts with a person who hires these street people who are homeless and have nothing good to do and trains them. Their limbs may be amputated or they are a victim of severe torture so they can be sympathized to beg money easily. They are allotted areas to beg on.
No other person from the team is allowed to beg in that area, if that happens, it turns out to be a deteriorating situation as all the beggars gather and tell them to go away, as it is “Their” area. The part of the mafia includes children rushing to cleaning windows, selling books and religious ornaments to even selling a pen.
These people may be in the form of any salesperson on the street. But the sad reality is, we can’t actually tell if we made a difference in someone’s live by helping them because we are being played. All of them look needy, some are happy and some are sad, but we can’t tell who actually NEEDS the money.
There is no doubt about the fact that Pakistani’s are very warm hearted people. There are so many people who donate their money to NGO’s or even directly to the people who need it. Because of these unsung heroes, we can safely say that the less privileged who have no access to food, water, shelter or basic necessities are being taken care of. But the point is that we need to eliminate the begging issue as it is taking the rights of those who actually need it and instead, a percentage is given to their supervisor and a part of it is given to the beggars. The truth is that it is almost impossible to eliminate this scenario because of some reasons, such as:
· Corruption : Sometimes police personnel’s are involved in this as the supervisor gives them a percentage of the amount begged
· Legislation: There are laws against begging but they are not being implemented
· Inequality: Funds being distributed unequally, those who actually need it for basic necessities are sometimes ignored and the ones who want the money to fulfill their demands are given the fund.
It can be said that this issue will remain in Pakistan for a long time because of our faulty legal structures and the corruption. However, there are some ways in which this issue can be addressed, but, it seems unlikely to happen in the near future because of the corruption in every part of the system.
There have been crackdowns against these begging mafias in the past, but they appear again and they don’t seem to be under control. An idea that I think would help is to take all the beggars from the mafia into custody and give them job in needed areas such as cleaning sectors of the country, capture them and train them to do something or teach them a skill. There are endless ideas that could help to eliminate this issue and putting them into good use. But, the problem here is that this cannot happen until their bosses and the whole network is captured and put behind the bars or given a death sentence, because eventually, in our country, these type of bosses end up threatening or killing the ones who go against their will.
