Begging mafia lurks in the shadows of Iranian homeless children

Ehsan.S., FCNN News Agency: According to experts, the trend of collecting beggars and sleeping cartons in Iran is far from ideal, which has led to an increase in the number of these people, especially among children.

According to FCNN, in this process, the discussion of organizing the collected people and improving their living conditions and those of their families is ignored. In this way, beggars and even children are collected from public places with forceful encounters and after a limited period of time, they return to the city. We see that the number of beggars, especially in the population group of children and women, is facing an unprecedented growth. However, despite the obvious and certain outcome of this vicious circle, the authorities of the Islamic Republic are not taking any action to find the root cause and plan purposefully.

Making inattention appear intentional

In an interview with FCNN, sociologist Ahmed Haghighi explores the roots of this problem.

Haghighi considers the lack of attention to forecasting the required credit and specific trustee as the main obstacle to achieving goals in this vicious cycle.

 The lack of a comprehensive plan to empower beggars, which leads to the wasting of the potential 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.

Haghighi believes that utilizing the power of non-governmental organizations in this direction has also been neglected. Furthermore, in his opinion, evidence suggests that collecting beggars as a first-level measure to deal with begging alone is not effective.

This expert goes beyond pathology and believes that this level of indifference among the authorities of the Islamic Republic can create a negative mentality towards them. That a deliberate attempt to grow this problem is the most optimistic of these mentalities. Especially since the daily income of a beggar in a city like Tehran is estimated at 300,000 Tomans.

No official is responsible.

He emphasizes that parallel work leads to a waste of funds and ineffective measures to deal with the phenomenon of begging in Iran.

Haghighi continues: “This weakness is especially evident in empowering the people who have been gathered, as no specific person is responsible for this responsibility.”

It is now said that municipalities are not responsible for training and empowering beggars collected from the city level, but welfare officials claim that municipalities should build capacity to empower the collected beggars.

"According to experts, this is the only way to prevent the collected people from returning to the city. However, this possibility does not even apply to children in the current situation, and in most metropolitan cities, after 24 hours, unaccompanied children are released back into the city."

Children's injuries collected

Thus, according to this sociologist, a child who has been harmed by violent encounters during the collection process is threatened with other types of harm after returning to society.

Especially since the evidence suggests that a large part of this population is engaged in organized begging in gangs.
They do.

Of course, this expert believes that people are also to blame for the growth of the begging problem, and if public participation is attracted, it is possible to control this unpleasant phenomenon in the country.

 Women and children are at risk.

According to this expert, the lack of transparency in information and responsibilities in this regard is another weakness. He continues: "We are witnessing that no official in the country considers himself accountable for the growth of the beggar population and the lowering of the begging age. The growth in the number of female beggars compared to the past is another disaster that can lead to the spread of corruption and the spread of infectious diseases in the country. Unfortunately, government officials are also indifferent to this. While according to the latest statistics, about 25 percent of beggars collected in the country are women."

Beggar children have no support.

Haghighi continues the conversation by emphasizing: "Officials are turning a blind eye to the facts and are not paying attention to the fact that begging has become a mafia in Iran and that renting out children or setting a bounty for places that are popular among beggars is a common thing. They do not even accept that a large portion of beggar children are subjected to all kinds of abuse. While according to statistics, 70 percent of beggar children have families."

"But they resort to begging unwillingly and under pressure from professional and profit-seeking individuals or their families. Because there is no institution or organization responsible for supporting this group of Iranian children. Thus, it can be safely said that measures such as collecting beggars alone are not effective and only serve as a temporary panacea."

Bitter realities from all corners

The Islamic Republic's authorities have refrained from providing transparent statistics on beggars to such an extent that announcing a single figure would shock all officials. However, people are honest witnesses to this in their daily interactions and understand the truth without the need for official statistics.

Meanwhile, the recent statements of the head of the National Welfare Organization are also a confirmation of the roots of this disaster. In October of this year, Anushirvan Mohseni Bandpay, referring to the collection of 400 female drug addicts from the city of Tehran who should be organized in Baharan centers, emphasized that the municipality's work in equipping Baharan centers is not going fast.

Daily visits to Tehran municipality shelters also indicate that there are more than three thousand sleeping boxes in the capital.

The statements of Tehran Governor Issa Farhadi also indicate that in less than four months, three thousand beggar children have been collected in this city.

While, according to Farhadi, the Welfare Department, as the sole guardian of this category of Iranian children, only has a capacity of 200 people.

The governor of Tehran proudly announced that the face of the city has changed by rounding up 1,000 drug addicts and 6,000 beggars in Tehran. According to ISNA, 100 of the beggars rounded up are children, and 3,000 of them are under 15 years old.

But the official did not specify how many days this change will last, because he himself confirmed that there is no capacity to maintain them. Thus, people have no hope for such measures, because the presence of beggars in every corner of the country's metropolises is a reality that is not as tangible to anyone as it is to the people in the streets and markets.