Child Beggary
in Pakistan
By Anila Ali
Irvine, CA
Prime
Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Shaukat Aziz, urges
Pakistanis to help improve the external image
of Pakistan and claims from time to time that
poverty has been eradicated from the country.
His claims are belied by the presence of child
beggars in droves on the streets of Karachi. The
government has enough resources to eradicate child
beggary provided it has the will to do so. Before
taking a decision on how to remove child beggary
from Pakistan, the PM of Pakistan and his aides
should make a tour of the streets of Pakistan
to see for themselves what child beggary is and
how it flourishes as a vocation for lots of poor
people.
I saw with my own eyes the many faces of poverty
on the streets of Karachi, from Sohrab Goth to
Defense, from Korangi to Shahrah-e-Faisal. I was
so deeply shocked that my pent up feelings are
now being translated into a book. Pakistani leaders
talk of poverty alleviation. I ask what proof
is there of any economic progress that the government
says it is making. Their standard reply will be
that economic progress takes a few years to fruition.
I would retort and ask, “Can’t social
reform begin now?”
People, especially children, live in abject poverty
in the bustling metropolis of Pakistan, Karachi.
The poor living in the affluent parts of the city
are afflicted by hunger and disease. People sit
and eat the most delicious foods in the restaurants
in Clifton and Defense and on the streets outside
you see the poor and the needy staring hungrily
to see if you can give them a morsel or two or
perhaps a few rupees so that they may take the
money home.
Most of these child beggars don’t go to
school and there is no hope of them ever going
to school. Once I stood outside a big supermarket
in Clifton; I wanted to see how Karachiites respond
to the droves of beggars. I was quite horrified
at the treatment meted out to the child beggars
by the shoppers; their insensitivity and their
lack of compassion were quite obviously missing.
A pretty beggar girl of about eight walked around
begging with her innocent smile, asking people
for money. I thought to myself: Had this girl
belonged to the middle-class, she would have been
the apple of everyone’s eyes with her fair
complexion, her beautiful hazel eyes; she would
have been eyed upon by so many prospective mothers-in-law.
She saw a man drive up in a Honda Accord so she
ran to plead for some money. He walked right past
her, as if she didn’t exist; upon her persistence,
he turned around and screamed at her to stop begging
and to go home. I felt deeply hurt with his callousness
and so went up to that man and asked him why he
treated a poor girl so callously. He was taken
aback and he started spewing venom for the government
of Pakistan and how they get rich and don’t
care about the poor. I reminded him that he is
a citizen of Pakistan and if nothing, he can voice
his opinions, form coalitions with NGO’s,
form citizens’ organizations for the alleviation
of social injustice and if he can’t do all
that, then he could go to the little girl’s
parents, urge them to enroll her in school and
take financial responsibility for it. If each
Pakistani took upon himself to voice concerns,
join hands and work together, stop living in oblivion,
stop accepting the conditions they live in, then
even a dictator like Saddam would have to take
notice. The little girl was so polite and well
mannered but on her face was writ large the anguish
of having nobody to take care of her. I pitied
her fate; as I remembered Mukhtaran Maee, I shuddered
to think of this poor girl’s fate. To be
at ease with my conscience I located her family
and got them in touch with my parents so that
they may take charge of her education.
The biggest problem facing Pakistanis today is
their incapacity to do something about their situation.
What Pakistanis have to do is to say to themselves
that if there is a beggar on the street, it is
their problem also. If there is trash on the street,
it is their problem too. They are living in hope
that one day they will have a utopian government
whose leaders will solve their innumerable problems.
That will not happen, my fellow countrymen. God
will only help us if we help ourselves, if we
accept that the trash in front of our house is
our problem, not just the city government’s.
Then only we will be able to get it off the streets.
From my analysis of the situation, I can confidently
say that the sightless government and the incompetent
nazim cannot do what the citizens can do themselves
collectively.
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