Alms…….to give or not to give? That is the question.

Visitors to India each year are most certainly bombarded by children in the streets begging for money, all day, every day. Often, these kind-hearted visitors will feel such sympathy; they will give to one child, then another, and then another. But the children just keep coming and coming and coming. The poor children of India’s slums and suburbs number in the thousands and too often, the money given to them is never seen by these needy children again, but rather placed in the hands of the…mafia? Yes, the “begging mafia” as it is referred to in India.

It is common to find that in the states of Kerala, Bihar and New Delhi, where the children are not begging for themselves. They are begging for a kingpin who exploits them daily to make a quick profit. Police statistics, which are presumably well understated, report the number of missing Indian children per year at 44,000. These number are staggering but even more than the numbers is the sad truth that hundreds if not thousands of children are not “missing” at all, but kidnapped, drugged, and used in the begging-trade. Run much like a drug trade, there are numerous levels of organization; from the children, ranging in age from infants to teenagers, to the women posed as social workers, to gang masters who will stop at nothing, and I mean nothing to hit their daily “targets.”

…criminals are so violent and amoral that they are prepared to hack the limbs off children, as well as steal new-born babies from hospitals…They use the children as begging ‘props’ to maximize their earnings from sympathetic passers-by. For in Mumbai, as well as in other major Indian cities, hundreds of young children have had their arms and legs chopped off; scores of others have been blinded. The gangs also pour acid on to the children’s bodies, leaving them with suppurating wounds…By no means all are mutilated by the beggar mafia, but those with the worst injuries do make the most money — up to £10 a day for deformed children, a fortune in a country where millions survive on just a tenth of that…

It is no wonder that the begging trade is so pervasive and ruthless. Almost as lucrative as the drug trade, the beggar mafia brings in over $30 million a year and that’s only in Mumbai. With over 300,000 children begging on the streets of India, there is plenty of money to go around. Plenty of money to keep corrupt local law enforcement at bay, and commonly turn a blind eye and ear to the parents of ‘missing’ children. What’s worse is the way in which these criminals enforce their rules and manage to keep these children under their control and exploit them day in and day out.

After being abducted, the children are taught begging techniques. “They are taught the ways and nuances of begging such as the most appropriate place to beg, the kind of people one should approach, the kind of dialogues and mannerisms that would make everyone sympathize,” said Mufti Imran, a researcher with the non-governmental organisation Save the Children. “The more a person is tortured or tormented, the more unfortunate he looks – all this will invoke more sympathy among the people who will then give them alms, and religious places are the perfect places to extract more,” said Mr Imran, explaining why the beggars seek out places of worship.…Perhaps unsurprisingly, almost all of these child beggars, whether mutilated or not, are addicted to solvents, alcohol and charras (powerful Afghan hashish, often laced with opium), which are supplied by the gang masters to keep the children under control. ‘It helps us forget where we are,’ says Tufhaar, nine, a child beggar who had his left arm removed and constantly sucks on a bag filled with glue. Right across this chaotic city, amputees line the streets, operating in aggressive gangs at every intersection and tourist attraction. Many maimed children are terrified of speaking out, saying their limbs ‘just disappeared’ or blaming unspecified ‘accidents’. This code of silence is understandable. ‘The gang masters hold you down and cut out your tongue if they think you have informed,’ says Flintoff, 18, a ‘reformed’ local Indian gangster and former child beggar who wears a T-shirt with a picture of the rapper Eminem. ‘I still steal now and again, and sell drugs — but I keep away from the beggar mafia. These men are not human.’

The Indian government has banned begging and even placed fines to those seen giving handouts to children on the streets, but enforcement is almost nonexistent. The government itself will not admit that many of its countries children are forced into this type of life-long slavery. What are the poor children of India to do when their government has seemed to give up on them? Run away? Run away to what? To where?

How can India’s government get a handle on this type of corruption? How does India’s government combat a society “born to beg?”

The following video brought tears to my eyes…what can be done?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ_dH9KX4XQ

I’m certain when we embark for India, we all will encounter many of these poor children begging for anything they can get. Certainly some of these poor will really be in desperate need and your money may actually go to their good cause but how can you be sure? Does offering a bit of hope with a handout also mean you are supporting the beggar mafia?

When we visit India this summer, will you give?

-Leslie Mann

Works Cited:

http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/bhiksha/begging.htmhttp://sacredcows.typepad.com/weblog/2008/05/begging-mafia.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?Indias-Missing-Children—Kidnapped,-Forced-into-Prostitution-or-in-Mafia-run-Begging-Gangs&id=477615

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1127056/The-real-Slumdog-Millionaires-Behind-cinema-fantasy-mafia-gangs-deliberately-crippling-children-profit.html

Related Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmpON5eT1uY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejFI6JcVsLA

Helpful Travel Hints: http://goindia.about.com/od/annoyancesinconveniences/p/indiabegging.htm