Begging Mafia Lurks in Wait for Iran’s Homeless Children

Ehsan.Sh., FCN News Agency: According to experts, the process of collecting beggars and cardboard sleepers in Iran is a vicious cycle that has increased the number of these individuals, particularly among children.

According to FCN News, in this process, the issue of organizing collected individuals and improving their living conditions and those of their families is being ignored. As a result, beggars and even children are collected from public places through forced measures, and after a limited period, they return to the city again. We have witnessed that the number of beggars, particularly among children and women, is facing unprecedented growth. However, despite the clear and obvious consequences of this vicious cycle, Islamic Republic officials are not taking action toward root-cause analysis and targeted planning.

Deliberately Presenting Negligence

Ahmad Haqiqi, a sociology expert, addressed the root causes of this problem in an interview with FCN News.

Haqiqi considers negligence in allocating necessary budget and identifying a specific responsible party as the main obstacle to achieving goals in this vicious cycle.

The absence of a comprehensive program for empowering beggars, which causes the waste of this segment of human capital in the country, is, according to this expert, the result of a cycle that has continued in Iran in recent decades.

Haqiqi believes that the potential of non-governmental organizations in this regard has also been neglected. Furthermore, according to him, evidence suggests that collecting beggars as a first-level measure to address begging is not sufficient on its own. This expert goes beyond pathology and believes that this level of indifference among Islamic Republic officials can create a negative mindset toward them, with deliberately trying to develop this problem being the most optimistic of these mindsets. Particularly given that daily begging income in a city like Tehran is estimated at 300,000 tomans.

No Official Is Accountable

He emphasizes that parallel work causes budgets to be wasted and measures to address the begging phenomenon in Iran to be fruitless.

Haqiqi continues: “This weakness is particularly evident in empowering collected individuals. To the extent that no specific responsible party is in charge of this responsibility.

Now it is said that municipalities have no responsibility for skills training and empowering collected beggars at the city level, but welfare officials claim that municipalities should create capacity for empowering collected beggars.

Whereas according to experts, only through this method can the return of collected individuals to the city streets be prevented. However, this possibility does not even apply to children in current conditions, and in most major cities, after 24 hours, orphaned children are released back onto the streets.”

Harm to Collected Children

Thus, according to this sociologist, a child harmed by forced treatment during collection, upon returning to society, faces various other forms of harm.

Particularly given that evidence suggests that a large portion of this population begs as part of organized gangs.

Of course, this expert believes that people are also responsible for the growth of the begging problem, and if public participation is secured, it is possible to control this ill-fated phenomenon in the country.

Women and Children Are in Danger

According to this expert, lack of transparency in information and responsibilities in this regard is another weakness. He continues: “We witness that in the country, no official holds themselves accountable for the growth of the beggar population and the lowering of the age of begging. The increase in the number of female beggars compared to the past is another catastrophe that could lead to the spread of corruption and contagious diseases in the country, which unfortunately government officials are also neglecting. Whereas according to the latest statistics, approximately 25 percent of collected beggars in the country are women.”

Child Beggars Have No Supporters

Haqiqi emphasizes in this conversation: “Officials are blind to realities and unaware that begging in Iran has become mafia-controlled, and renting out children or setting key money for busy places among beggars is commonplace. They don’t even acknowledge that a large portion of child beggars are subjected to various forms of abuse. Whereas according to statistics, 70 percent of child beggars have families.

But unwillingly and under pressure from professional profiteers or their families, they are forced into begging. Because no institution or organization is responsible for supporting this group of Iranian children. Thus, it can be boldly said that measures such as collecting beggars are not sufficient on their own and merely serve as a temporary band-aid.”

Bitter Realities from Every Corner

The avoidance by Islamic Republic officials of providing clear statistics on beggars is to such an extent that announcing a single figure shocks all officials. Whereas people in daily interactions are true witnesses to this, and without needing official statistics, they discover the truth.

In the meantime, recent statements by the country’s Welfare Organization chief also confirm the roots of this catastrophe. Anushiravan Mohseni-Bandpey, in the month of Mehr this year, referring to the collection of 400 drug-addicted cardboard-sleeping women from Tehran’s streets who should be organized in Baharestan centers, emphasized that the municipality’s work speed in equipping these centers is not high.

Daily visits to Tehran Municipality warming centers also indicate the presence of more than three thousand cardboard sleepers in the capital.

Statements by Isa Farhadiy, Tehran’s governor, also suggest that in less than four recent months, three thousand child beggars have been collected in this county.

Whereas according to Farhadiy, the Welfare Department, as the only responsible party for the care of this group of Iranian children, has a capacity of only 200 people.

Tehran’s governor proudly announced that with the collection of one thousand drug addicts and 6,000 beggars from Tehran, the city’s face has changed. According to ISNA, one hundred of the collected beggars are children and 3,000 of them are under 15 years old.

However, this official did not specify how long this change would last. Since he himself confirmed that he has no capacity to keep them. Thus, people have no hope for such measures because the presence of beggars in every corner of the country’s major cities is a reality that is not as tangible to anyone as it is to ordinary people on the streets and in bazaars.