Police in Pretoria, South Africa discovered today that parents and child minders have been renting out babies entrusted in their care to street beggars. For roughly the equivalent of CDN$2.70, babies could be “rented” for the entire day.
Police spokeswoman Doortjie van Rensburg expressed her suspicion that crime syndicates are operated a certain number of daycares. Parents, oftentimes, may pick up their children completely unaware that they’ve been used as pawns in the schemes of come beggars.
But it is not always the case that children are being used. Sometimes entire families may live on the streets for they have nowhere else to go. Rural-to-urban migration, a pattern being consolidated throughout the developing world, puts further pressure on accessibility of jobs, housing, sanitation and social services. When the lack of income-generating activities to support families to be had in the countryside forces peasants into cities where labour markets are already maxed out, the number of urban unemployed swells.
In such cases, begging may be the only apparent means of making an income. In such cases, it becomes less an economic venture and more a survival strategy. Especially in tourist localities, tourists are perceived as being more willing hand over to children. If the alternative is to starve, or watch your children die of preventable diseases, what choice do parents have? The real culprit in most child begging is not any sort of malice or wilful neglect child rights, but poverty.
The issue has brought the larger issues of street children to bear. In a country where 45% of the population is unable to find work and just under 20% of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS, the issue of street children has fallen by the wayside, admitted spokespeople for the country’s Department of Health and Social Development.
But, on Friday, children found begging at intersection or along streets were taken from their parents into protective custody. Parents who had brought their children with them when begging or performing small jobs on the street (like shoe-shining) were not arrested. Instead, they were informed that they would not regain custody until their situation had improved and their children were no longer vulnerable to spending their days on the streets.
Department official Teddy Gomba further commented, “We should protect children from exploitation and from adults using children for financial gain by begging at street corners. We want to ensure that the children get to a place of safety where they can go to school and get properly fed.”
Globally, there are an estimated 100 million children. About 40% of them are thought to be truly homeless. There are generally three types of street children: runaways or orphans who are homeless; working street children who return to a home of some sort with the money they’ve made; and street families who live, work and sleep on the streets.