Poverty-stricken parents are using or abusing their children to beg on the streets during the school vacation, a police official said yesterday.
A spokesman for the Police Bureau for the Prevention of Abuse of Children and Women said that during the past week, they had arrested several parents who had virtually forced their children to go out and beg for money to get meals and other basic needs for the family.
He said the police were determined to prevent such abuse of children and would take tough action against parents resorting to such practices, though most of these parents claimed they were using the children because they were in dire poverty and had no alternative.
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| Police arresting a woman who was begging with a child. |
“I have three children and my husband has deserted me. I have no alternative other than begging and since it is the school vacation I decided to bring my child also as I had no place to keep my child,” Nandani Malkanthi, a 36 year old woman, who was arrested near the Maradana railway station told the Sunday Times.
“Since I cannot keep my children in hunger I come to beg. I tell the people in my village that I am working in a house in Colombo,” she added.
According to her, she and the child go out begging about three or four times a day and are able to collect about Rs. 500 each day.
Her seven-year-old daughter was taken to the police station and then sent to a probation home following a court order.
The girl told the Sunday Times that she was a Year Two student and accompanied the mother on her instructions.
In a similar case a 14-year-old girl begging near the colour lights in Pamankada was arrested along with another woman who claimed to be her mother. This girl also told the same story – it was school vacation time and they had no option but to go out begging.
A senior officer of this police unit, however, has a different view. He said these were clear cases of child abuse and the police would take tough action as there appeared to be an increase in the number of such cases.
He said such children would be kept in probation homes until they completed their education and would be sent home after that. |
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