There is no hiding place for beggars in Anambra State as the Government is determined to rid the State of their nuisance.
As at last week, Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs Ify Obinabo disclosed that over 40,000 beggars and destitutes had been rounded up in parts of the state.
The government recently launched operation against syndicates using children to beg for alms in Awka, the state capital. The Ministry of Women Affairs and the Awka Capital Development Authority (ACTDA) in a well-coordinated operation on August 13 arrested about 30 child beggars, including adults. Many of them were apprehended at the popular Aroma Junction flyover bridge, which served as safe haven for child beggars, who were used by their parents and syndicates to beg for alms.
Residents of the area said child beggars who are mostly not from the State also engaged in various crime especially stealing: “Anytime a group of charity organisations come to them to give out food, they start by causing a very rowdy atmosphere, and at the end, they even steal the phones and other valuables of members of the organisations, who were not suspecting that some of them are thieves.”
The Commissioner for Women Affairs said: “We are arresting these children, not to make them victims, but to use them to get at the syndicates that brought them here for begging.
“You and I know that Anambra has a low number of out-of-school children, and we will not stand and let these children remain in the streets, while being used by syndicates.
“They will help us to trace the syndicates behind them and those are the people that the law will catch up with.”
Obinabo expressed deep concern that school-age children were being denied their right to education.