JEDDAH, 3 July — Like it or not, you cannot escape the ubiquitous sight of grotesquely deformed human beings crawling or dragging along the pavements near mosques, supermarkets or other public places. Some are without legs, others without hands or are burdened with other forms of disability which makes the passer-by fumble his pocket for a one-riyal note.
One wonders how do they manage to slip through the entry points to the Kingdom which are guarded by immigration officials. Why these foreigners are allowed to give a distorted image of Saudi society particularly in the holy cities?
Media reports about beggars and their ploys are on the increase in recent times. We have been reading about innocent babies below six or seven years, who should have been coddled by their parents or playing with children of the same age, sent as beggars to the deadly crossings on thoroughfares such as the Madinah Road.
It is estimated that around 100,000 beggars roam the streets of Saudi Arabia, the vast majority of them foreigners.
According to figures released by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, 15,625 beggars were arrested in the year 1999 and 15,381 were detained in 1998. Of them, only 24 percent were Saudi.
The ordinary beggars’ work hours start in most cases shortly before the noon prayers. Their “employers” deploy them at their “duty” points or they arrive in their own three-wheelers. First, they report at the doors of mosques because all the supermarkets will be closed for prayers. Besides, mosques themselves are a highly lucrative source of charity. After people have dispersed from the mosques, they move to other previously determined spots such as shopping centers, signal points and other public places.
According to a recent study by the Okaz newspaper, the beggars find shelter in the old districts of the city such as Bukhariya, Mazloum, Shati and Mahallah Yemen. Gaining entry to these areas itself is a Herculean task. The narrow streets have been cluttered and blocked with the deformed tricycles, the hallmark of the handicapped beggars. The umdah, or district chief, of Bukhariya noted with displeasure that some citizens let their buildings to beggars.
A common scene in these squalid back streets is groups of healthy-looking but handicapped African men and women sitting on their cycles and chatting in their vernacular, incomprehensible to others.
One of them, Muhammad Nour, said he came to the Kingdom last year on an Umrah visa. He did not find any difficulty in joining his community’s camp in the city and sharing accommodation with them. Eight of them lived in a small room with a monthly rent of SR200, he said.
Their “working hours” vary. Some of them will go out in the morning while some others left at about 11 a.m. Mostly they go out around noon or evening when the supermarkets become alive with shoppers.
They all return late in the night to their refuge to meet at the same place and compare that day’s experiences, Nour said.
Haroun Muhammad said he came to the Kingdom, where people are very kind, because he could not work with his physical disability. It was easy to enter the county on Umrah visa, he said.
Some beggars, who view journalists with apprehension, refuse to talk with them or to be photographed.
A foul smell lingered the whole area. Cooking pots, water cans, tricycle littered the narrow roads and pavements. A beggar in a house said all the inmates of the house were disabled and related by kinship. A woman of their own nationality came daily to wash and cook for them and help them in their household chores.
A child with both legs amputated said he was disabled following a traffic accident. He was friendly with the Saudi children in the neighborhood who always helped him. However, most residents in the area hated the presence of beggars in the district, particularly because of their shouts and noisy quarrels at night apart from the irritating clatter of their vehicles.
Ali Hassan, a citizen living in the neighborhood, hoped that they would quit the street soon. Ismail Abdullah, another citizen, considered them a nuisance as they did not care for other people living in the area. The residents also questioned the legality of their profession which they practiced in the sight of the authorities.
The director of the anti-beggary department said all efforts were being made to curb the antisocial practice. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs launched a campaign through its 12 anti-beggary offices across the Kingdom last year. He said citizens had a major role in discouraging the illegal beggars. They should distribute their charities through legitimate channels such as philanthropic organizations, he said.
Foreign beggars enter the Kingdom legally on Haj and Umrah visas and then stay on illegally. According to Muhammad Bantan, undersecretary for Umrah affairs at the Haj Ministry, the new Umrah regulations insist on physical fitness as a precondition for pilgrimage.
The streets of the Kingdom usually witness a sudden spurt in the number of beggars during Ramadan. This is because they want to take advantage of people’s readiness to give charity in the holy month more than at any other time in the year.
