Begging cannot simply be banned

By Bhumika Ghimire
Column: Nepali in America

Published: April 06, 2009

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West Lafayette, IN, United States, — Last week’s episode of the popular U.S. reality show, “The Amazing Race,” featured contestants participating in challenges across the Indian city of Jaipur. One contestant became very distressed when she saw children begging on the streets. She found it difficult to digest the level of poverty where children barely three or four years old are forced to beg.

In South Asia, begging – in cities big and small – is very common. Walking around Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, one will see children, adults and senior citizens asking strangers to be a little merciful. In Chennai, India, I once saw a baby lying on the street next to a tin cup.

To find a human being reduced to the state where he or she finds begging the only way to survive pinches one’s heart, no matter how unemotional one tries to be about the issue. It hurts even more to see a mother with an infant, begging to survive. As a new mother I find it especially challenging to digest.

For politicians and city planners concerned about image and environment, beggars are surely a hazard. They look dirty, pester people and don’t show a very appealing picture of the city or the country. Beggars are an unsightly black mark on a community.

This is all very true, but is banning begging going to solve the problem? Recently Bangladesh decided to enforce a strict ban on begging in public places. The government plans to eliminate begging altogether within the next five years.

In the United States, the sale and consumption of illegal drugs is banned, but still the country is the largest consumer of heroin, cocaine and other deadly items. In Nepal the law prohibits the practice of polygamy, but still there are men who have more than one wife and publicly acknowledge the fact.

Illegal drug use, polygamy and begging are socio-economic ills. Announcing government bans or merely passing laws against such practices are not going to cure them.

No one grows up wanting to be a beggar. No parents want their child to run around the streets for a few rupees. Begging is not a career choice; it is the only way for millions to make ends meet.

Also, a large number of minors, the disabled, the mentally ill and frail elderly people take refuge on the streets to survive. Surely they were forced by circumstances to do so, or someone else decided this for them. There are some who choose to beg, but by and large it is not a choice.

Governments alone cannot eliminate begging, but they can make a huge difference by launching programs to help the poor. In the case of Bangladesh, things are moving in the right direction. According to the World Bank, the number of people living on less than US$1 per day in the country has been reduced by 9 percent in the last eight years. Positive programs launched by the government should continue, but the myopic plan of “banning” begging should be scrapped.

In Nepal, the government has not placed a ban on begging and there are no comprehensive programs to rehabilitate beggars. The leaders there are too busy with expensive Nordic sojourns to pay attention to such a problem.

(Bhumika Ghimire is a freelance reporter. Her articles have been published at OhMyNews, NepalNews, Toward Freedom, Telegraph Nepal, Himal South Asian and ACM Ubiquity. She is also a regular contributor to News Front Weekly, in Kathmandu, and Nepal Abroad, in Washington D.C. She can be reached at bhumika_g@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Bhumika Ghimire.)