Children, crime and charity

Ramazan is here, and so are the child beggars. What is significant is that for a significant number of years, after the passage of the Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act of 2004 and the establishment of the Child Welfare and Protection Bureau in 2007 after an amendment to it, these children had vanished from the streets.
Police patrols picked them up regularly, parents of children found on the roads and out of school were required to turn up at the airy premises to collect them after giving assurances they would not be sent out to work and the people of the city were spared the children who swarmed around cars or tugged at sleeves.
But perhaps, in this age of overt piety, when elaborate prayers are posted on social media groups, with demands – or threats – that they be sent out like chain letters, the children are not entirely unwelcome. They play a role in society, helping to ease guilt and satisfy what people see as a religious duty. Notes and coins are placed in small stretched out hand, with expanded generosity during Ramazan.
Surely the givers realise this money will not remain with the children. Even if they have not considered wider, ideological issues linked to the giving of charity they surely realise small children should not be begging, or working. Even if this is not in their thoughts, they must have read of the manner in which the lucrative beggary business is run by mafias. They must realise that when they roll down the window of an air-conditioned car and hand out notes or coins they are giving this business a boost, condemning other children to exploitation and brutality. But it seems the concept of ‘good’ has become so warped that even an evil deed is reincarnated as a ‘good’ one.
There is a paradox here. Giving out money, notably to a child, makes the giver feel good, even though he or she is essentially promoting evil. There is no thinking involved; only a desire to go through a ritual and by doing so appease their own conscience, possibly believe they are performing a religious duty. Children are taught too to dole out money in this fashion, setting the mould for the future. Charity, of course, means we think less about economic disparity and the reasons for this. It contributes to maintaining the status quo.
But perhaps this is taking too deep a look at things. Most people give blindly; many do so out of what they perceive as kindness. It is difficult to ignore the eyes of the children who beg, their exploiters aware the youngest or most persistent of the children are likely to receive more. The money handed out to them of course goes to gang leaders, middlemen, sometimes parents who play this role.
The process of dividing the spoils can be spotted in the backstreets of every major city: a commission for those who bring in the children, a scolding – or worse – for those who do not bring in enough, a share at times for the policemen who look on. Reporters and cameramen have reported being threatened.
The begging business is a huge one, a lucrative one and also an ugly one. We have all heard of children deliberately mutilated so they can earn more. We know the facts. Yet so many refuse to turn away child beggars, handing out coins stocked in cars and by doing so helping keep alive an act of pure evil that will surely not bring them the religious awards they seek. We need a campaign to educate people, to make them aware and help them realise that by handing out money to children, they are in fact helping criminals and at the same time pushing forward a cycle that entraps, enslaves and victimizes children, denying them basic rights. We assume the pious do not deliberately seek to inflict such cruelty on the helpless. Yes, they are possibly unaware; yes they possibly prefer to look away.
But even blindness taken to this level is an act of terrible wrong doing. It means that millions in fact connive with the worst elements in society. The truth is a matter of economics – of supply and demand. If children were not given money there would be no child beggary and none of the horrors associated with it.
This can be achieved by creating awareness, educating people about the wrongs they do. But like all efforts to raise awareness and create a change in public behaviour, this will take a long time to achieve. The children cannot wait. Instead we need to ask what governments are doing. Why have laws brought into place been allowed to become redundant?
Notably in Lahore, given that there had been some success in taking children off the street, it seems truly unfortunate the government has failed to keep up the programme. The problem may also be that the child protection system was put in place by a different government led by a party whose members now sit on opposition benches, and this could be a factor in what appears to be a lack of interest in the CWPB and the mechanisms that support it. We see precisely the same attitude when it comes to infrastructure works or other projects. Unfinished roads, leading nowhere, slowly decay in many places, begun by one government, abandoned by the next.
There are rumours too that the excellent 1122 rescue service is too no longer a priority. These are terrible tragedies. Politicians apparently have no qualms about making others suffer, even the small children who beg, with death sometimes visible in eyes that do not brighten up, and for this our leaders should be ashamed. We offer our people few protections. We struggle to put systems in place. Allowing those that have been set up to fall into disuse and decay is a criminal act.
The child protection system was not perfect. There were many flaws visible in it. Some were tackled after the system came into place in 2007, others still needed to be fixed. The problem of child slavery and also child labour in its many forms is not one that will vanish instantaneously. It needs a process continued over a significant period of time.
Yes, the bureau continues to function. Judging by the facts that reports have been made to it on child abuse, and the concerned victim, a domestic servant, subsequently rescued, there also seems to be greater public awareness both about child exploitation and the existence of the CWPB. But the reappearance of street children suggests a lack of interest in its working; a lack of backing from the Punjab government. We do not know the situation of the bureaus set up in other cities. But the provincial government does need to clarify its priorities and protect its children. It should be working to create a stronger system, to offer children more, rather than to permit what is already there to deteriorate.
Progress is a continuous goal; offering children help is something we would all agree is desirable and the Punjab government, as well as other governments, should then be working alongside the public, towards making life better for children everywhere in the country rather than allowing it to become worse due to their own indifference.
The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.
Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com