JEDDAH: The number of beggars in the Kingdom swells during Ramadan when Saudis as well as expatriates give generously to the poor and the needy.
Many elderly people enter Saudi Arabia to beg during the holy month. Some organized criminal groups also bring in old men and women and handicapped children for begging.
Capt. Eqab Al-Rubaie, director of operations at the Passport Department in Makkah, said his officers arrested 677 beggars so far this year, adding that they belonged to different nationalities. In southern Asir province, the number of beggars arrested this year reached 23,075.
Yemenis accounted for 95 percent of those arrested, a local press report said, adding that about 3,500 Yemeni child beggars are held every month by specialized agencies in the Kingdom.
A study conducted by Muhammad Al-Aji, with the financial support of King Abdul Aziz City of Science and Technology, found that about 100,000 child beggars roam Saudi streets, with the majority of them coming from Yemen. Others belonged to 17 Asian and African countries.
Al-Aji noticed that some beggars assist robbers in planning and executing their crime. Beggars use different methods to win people’s sympathy. Most of them exploit their handicaps to get assistance. Begging has become an easy method for these people to make a living and get rich. Beggars fight each other when one of them occupies the place of another or one follows the other to get help from a potential philanthropist. Fighting beggary during Ramadan is one of the main problems facing Saudi security officers and Social Affairs Ministry officials. Passport officers arrested 15 child beggars hiding in an Asir cave recently. Most of them were aged below 13. Apart from traffic points, beggars wait for their catch at ATMs, mosques, supermarkets and restaurants.
A girl who was arrested in Abha for begging told police that her father was away from home and her mother was sick. She and her sister used to make SR20 to SR30 daily.
Olayan Al-Atiyat, a sociologist, said the growing number of beggars at traffic points and other public places reflected the negligence of anti-beggary agencies. “It is their duty to stop this phenomenon in our society,| he said and urged the Social Affairs Ministry to launch campaign to fight beggary.
Hatem Barry, director of the ministry’s office in Madinah, said Saudis could play a big role in combating beggary by not showing any sympathy to beggars.
