Child Begging and Peddling
Operations: Stop Slavery Now
"On the first day I only
earned 20 yuan from begging. They beat me up.” Yang Ping, girl with spinal deformity
sold to a begging ring in Beijing.
Child begging may sound
innocuous, but many of these children are subject to extreme abuse including
willful mutilation to make them more easily pitied, and thus better potential
earners. They may be disfigured by having an eye gouged out, a limb amputated,
or being otherwise visibly scarred.
Most children are bought or
kidnapped, then forced to beg or pick pockets on the streets under threat of
beatings and worse. Their keeper takes all their earnings of course. In some
parts of the world these operations actually masquerade as charities such as
orphanages for whom the victims are ostensibly collecting contributions.
Peddling rackets are closely
related to begging rings. Even here in New York City there have been cases
where street peddlers were working to pay off alleged debts to their
traffickers.
One ring here in the city was
prosecuted for bringing deaf Mexican children into the country illegally for
the purpose of setting them to work in the subway system selling cheap
trinkets. These operations may employ both children and adults.
In both begging and peddling
operations, the size of the enterprise may vary widely. A trafficker may “buy”
a single deformed child from his impoverished parents and set him out to work.
A victim may be set out to peddle a limited output of handcrafts.
At the other end of the spectrum
are large syndicates that employ scouts, middlemen, transport crews and
essentially run schools for beggars not unlike that of the character Fagin, made
famous in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Children are schooled as pickpockets,
con-artists, muggers and petty thieves.
Infants may be kidnapped for use
as props. Police may be bribed. Corruption may reach higher levels.
Unscrupulous doctors are employed to disfigure children.
This level of inhumane abuse is
hard to fathom. Yet it occurs in most major cities where grinding poverty makes
simple survival a cruel challenge.
via: http://bit.ly/JQpCtV
