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More Needs to Be Done to Tackle Beggary

More Needs to Be Done to Tackle Beggary
More Needs to Be Done to Tackle Beggary

Beggary is an unsavory social phenomenon and mostly stems from poverty and joblessness. Cooperation among the municipality, the State Welfare Organization (SWO), ministry of interior, the police and the judiciary is necessary to address the problem, said a lawmaker.

Pointing to the unsatisfactory progress in the officialdom to resolve the beggary problem, Abbas Salahi stressed:”We should do an assessment of vulnerable groups to tackle the issue, and generate jobs as well as provide shelters for this financially weak stratum of society.”

Moreover, children are the most vulnerable and exploited by adults in their need for food and shelter.

Therefore, the child victims of beggary should be identified and supported by the SWO or given for adoption to qualified couples, he said, quoted by the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency.

Since plenty of money is earned by “pretending to be poverty-stricken in a deceptive way, we should try to differentiate between such types and the real beggars through accurate study,” he said calling for more job creation for the economically weak individuals and harnessing their skills after giving them vocational training. This can prevent their return to mendicancy.

 Identity Cards

As beggary is considered a crime by law, the arrested beggars will be punished.

To help identify individuals who resort to beggary, the government has drafted regulations to issue beggars identity cards in Tehran, which will be implemented by the Tehran governor’s office in the near future, says Mohammad-Ali Erfanmanesh, its general director.

“When a beggar is rounded up and identified, his information will be saved in our data system.”

In case of repeat offense, ‘’we will be able to identify if he is a member of a larger beggary gang and take appropriate action,” he added, ISNA reported. 

Financialtribune.com