‘My father beats me if I come home with less than SR70’

Child begging is on the increase, said Saad Al-Shahrani, man in charge of combating begging in Jeddah.
Al-Shahrani told Arab News that the Anti-begging Unit in Jeddah has picked up more than 400 children off the city’s streets, most of them of African and Asian descent.
“These children are mostly between 10 and 15 years of age,” he said. “More than 80 percent of these children are victims of family conflict, divorce and domestic violence.”
Child beggars are mostly found at traffic lights.
Several community members have voiced their concern over this phenomenon and said that there seem to be more and more children on the street every day.
Children are usually dressed in torn clothing and move between cars as they stop at traffic lights. They also stand on pavements and traffic roundabouts.
Many of these children have nowhere to go and sleep in gardens with no shelter but the sky above. They start begging in the early hours and take a nap in neighborhood parks or green areas in the afternoon, resuming begging activity at night.
Residents wonder whether these children are victims of social and economic hardship that left them with no other choice or are part of a bigger scheme of criminals to train youngster for a career in crime.
Hussein Bamitrif, a family consultant, said these children are indeed street children, but belong to a much more organized scheme.
“They practice begging in cooperation with one another,” he said. “They are the product of broken families. Divorce plays a major part in their lives. When parents break up, children are exposed to vagrancy and displacement. In fact, 90 percent of street children who beg have mothers and fathers, but large numbers of them have not completed their education, which leaves them with plenty of free time and limited future prospects.”
“Street children can be divided into three categories,” said Bamitrif. “There are those who live between home and the street, those who beg for money and others who are being exploited by their elders.”
Abdulatif, a 13-year-old African beggar, told Arab News of his hardship.
“If I come home with less than SR70, my father beats me up, so I have no choice but to rake in this sum. I often have to beg on more than one traffic light to make this amount,” said Abdulatif.
Masood, a 14-year-old Asian, said he prefers to beg by traffic lights than go home because his older brother and father are always fighting. His brother steals furniture from other people’s homes, forcing his father to routinely throw him out of the house.
Fahad Al-Wahbi, secretary-general of the Literature Department at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, said that the effects of such a phenomenon are very dangerous because they affect the entire community, especially since this segment of society inevitably forms part of the future generation.
“Sending a 10-year-old to beg on the streets will lead to other negative habits, especially in the absence of family deterrence. The child will not survive addiction to cigarettes or drugs,” he said.
These children often fall ill due to ever-changing weather conditions as they sleep on the street.
Maj. Gen. Zial Al-Hamzi, official spokesman for the Jeddah Traffic Department, told Arab News that the child begging phenomenon next to traffic lights will be monitored through traffic patrols and that children caught begging would be referred to the city’s Anti-Begging Unit.