Feature: Over 300,000 child beggars bane of modern India

Pervez Khan came to Delhi from a small town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh after his parents died five years ago and since then he has been begging at the main railway station of the national capital.

"There was no one who was willing to give me even small-time job in my home town. I had to feed myself. I decided to go to Delhi. When I reached the New Delhi Railway Station, I was so hungry that I right away started begging and from that day, I am surviving on alms only," said the 15-year-old teenager.

Prevez is not alone. There are over 300,000 child beggars in India with a total population size of 1.2 billion, as the gap between rich and poor is wide, according to the Indian National Human Rights Commission.

"These children find their way to the streets owing to diverse reasons, but mainly because of poverty and an unstable home. However, what awaits them on the streets is a life of challenges. These children get no education or training to make a better living and therefore, end up adopting begging as a profession," said Swatang Singh, who works for the betterment of child beggars.

There are an estimated 60,000 beggars and a third of them are under 18 years of age, according to a recent survey conducted by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights.

About 57 percent of these child beggars are also street-vendors and rag-pickers, said the survey. Police believed that these children come into contact with organized racket whose tangles they find difficult to let go of.

The survey, however, suggested that the children were pushed into begging by their parents to make ends meet. Most participating children said they often went to sleep on empty stomachs and inevitably became addicted to substance abuse.

The report also mentioned that these children were involved in petty criminal activities like pick-pocketing. While begging was found to be more prevalent among boys, it was revealed that those girls who were made to beg were also sexually abused and pushed into prostitution.

Such figures are often released by social welfare agencies to draw the attention of the state and civil society towards addressing these issues. But it is an issue that needs constant monitoring and support by all agencies concerned.

The Delhi government has tried several steps to discourage child begging. Last year, the ruling anti-graft Aam Aadmi Party's government, led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, launched an initiative to provide shelter to child beggars and rehabilitate them.

It was suggested to provide the children with education and technical training like mobile repair for boys and tailoring for girls to rehabilitate them in the long run. However, these plans most often take a long time to give sustained results.

"There is a desire among all agencies concerned towards welfare of child beggars but not enough to make an agreement among them on different issues. Who carries out what business when these children are to be rehabilitated and what role can non-governmental organizations play in this are the major bones of contention," said Nina Pathak, who works with a non-governmental organization that deals with child trafficking in Delhi.

In 2009, the then Delhi government had also launched a helpline number (1098) to rescue child beggars. It was followed by the installation of biometric machines at beggars' home in order to keep a database of the children and zero in on repeat offenders.

Later, the municipal corporation had also announced its plan to employ these beggars towards managing its toilet complexes in order to institutionally help them. But these schemes have only met limited success or been declared failed due to lack of coordination among different agencies.

The steps taken by the government are also often criticized for being limited in approach and myopic. For instance, among several other initiatives announced last year, the Delhi government announced its plan of making the city "beggar-free."

While this was itself a reflection of the failure of the earlier programs of similar nature, as per this initiative creation of more beggar homes was announced.

"The attitude towards these plans is the biggest problem of these initiatives. For this plan, the government sought to create beggar homes which are more like jails for the children who get used to living a free life on the streets," said Moushmi Datta, another social worker in Delhi.

"There is no one to give personal attention to the children, forcing them to run away from these shelters and get pushed into begging again. The government should rather give them skill training and a chance to lead a better future," she added.

The criminal treatment of child beggars at the hands of the authorities should be solved, some police officers suggested.

"States across the country need to urgently decriminalize begging. Hundreds of homeless persons, including children, are arrested every year, sent to rehabilitation homes or jails because they are poor and have nowhere to live," said a police officer, on condition of anonymity.

However, given the dark condition of rehab homes in the city and the horror stories of crime and abuse coming from them, the idea of rehabilitation itself needs an overhaul.

"Just imagine there still are around 800,000 children out of schools in Delhi. Why is this happening? The children are sent to rehab homes and made into bigger criminals. Therefore, one needs to really rethink the idea of rehabilitation," said R.P. Khan, a city-based lawyer.

"We need to adopt a practical approach towards solving these issues. Vocational training and gainful employment is the only way out of these problems," he added.

It is perhaps also the time that the modus operandi behind child begging is tracked and busted.

Experts believed that those running these rackets are often wanted criminals who are into child trafficking, pornography and prostitution. This vicious circle needs to be cracked with consistent measure from the authorities to gain any meaningful progress in arresting child begging.

While these measures are taken, the Indian government has also drafted a Bill called "The Persons in Destitution (Protection, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2015" seeking to make begging a social issue and not a crime.

The bill calls upon the state governments to establish rehab centers and provide vocational training to beggars. However, it is still a long time before the Bill will be introduced and put into action. Till then, it remains to be seen how state governments let go of the piecemeal approach towards dealing with the issue. Endit