- Title: IRAQ: Begging in Baghdad increases despite government and police round ups
- Date: 19th March 2009
- Summary: BAGHDAD, IRAQ (RECENT) (REUTERS) TOP VIEW OF TRAFFIC SCENE IN CENTRAL BAGHDAD VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC WOMAN BEGGING WHILE WALKING THROUGH TRAFFIC MALE BEGGAR TAKING MONEY FROM DRIVER VARIOUS WOMEN BEGGING KHALED, WHO SELLS CLOTHS FOR CLEANING CARS, WALKING IN STREET (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) KHALED, CLOTH PEDDLAR, SAYING "I leave my house in the Jisr Diyala area at 6am. I arrive here by 7am and stay until 4 or 5pm. My work depends on the traffic junctions, if there is a traffic jam, I do well. If there is no traffic, there is little work. I couldn't find another job, and I have been doing this for four years now."
- Embargoed: 3rd April 2009 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Iraq
- Country: Iraq
- Topics: Domestic Politics,Social Services / Welfare
- Reuters ID: LVA6L5PXTUNZTCR09V77HG3C6EU2
- Story Text: Despite a government order to round up beggars last February, many still roam the streets of Baghdad, hustling amidst the midtown traffic for the occasional gesture of generosity.
Police have rounded up scores of men, women and children and handed them over to social welfare institutions and psychiatric hospitals. Many of them are elderly, widowed, orphaned or mentally disabled.
The Interior Ministry is concerned by the rising numbers of beggars in Baghdad, some of whom have been taken advantage of by insurgents to launch suicide attacks.
According to NGOs, the deteriorating economic situation is the main cause, as well as the increase in widows and orphans -- victims of the violence that was unleashed after the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq in 2003.
Too proud to beg, Khaled peddles cloths for wiping windscreens to motorists stuck at main junctions in central Baghdad.
He travels an hour each day from his home on the outskirts of Baghdad, braving the winter wetness and scorching summer sun for the past four years.
"I leave my house in the Jisr Diyala area at 6am. I arrive here by 7am and stay until 4 or 5pm. My work depends on the traffic junctions, if there is a traffic jam, I do well. If there is no traffic, there is little work. I couldn't find another job, and I have been doing this for four years now," he says.
Khaled is among thousands of unemployed young men who have been reduced to peddling packets of tissue, cigarettes and biscuits. It earns him a meagre wage with which he feeds his family.
But many Iraqis have become sceptical of what seems to be an organised and profitable wave of mendicancy.
"I am sure there are many people in need. But from what I see in the streets, I believe that the need is not that great. Most of the beggars on the streets today are exploiting people, they've become professional beggars.
Some of them send four or five beggars to different street intersections and make a profit from it," Daoud Salman said.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has even set up an anti-begging committee which provides financial and social support to families to prevent them from sending their children to work or beg.
"It is a phenomenon that negatively impacts society, it is uncivilised. Their numbers are on the rise because it is a quick way to make money without exerting much effort. Despite the fact that it violates human values," said anti-begging committee member Ali Murshid.
The committee also provides shelter for the most vulnerable street populations.
"Our ministry provides shelter for elderly beggars, for women who are 55 and above and men who are over 60 years old, who aren't cared for by their families. We also care for orphans," said Murshid.
Despite being one of the world's top oil producers, a third of Iraq's 26 million people live in poverty, according to a 2008 UNDP report.1 - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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