PESHAWAR, Jan 24: The streets of the city are swarming with beggars and the high-ups in the provincial government seem to have closed their  eyes to this growing menace.

The child beggars roaming around the city streets, main crossings, shopping malls, bazaars and off-lanes, have become bothersome for the commuters.

Every traffic signal in the city is swarmed with child beggars aging form five to eight years. They are adept in telling stories of their miserable living. The moment a vehicle stops at a signal they rush towards it.

Mahjabeen, 10, comes to Saddar with her six-year old brother to beg. She lives in Kacha Ghari, a slum located in the west of Peshawar. Her father, a gardener, who earns Rs60 daily, which is not enough for an eight-member family, so Mahjabeen and her brother are compelled to support their family.

She does not like to beg as people tease her a lot, but if she stops to do so then her entire family will suffer.

Most of the beggars belong to one clan, coming early in the morning in clusters to the main bazaars for begging.Those who come from very far or are homeless, sleep in the ditches and on the footpaths.

Gul Zaman, 11, has been begging on the Arbab Road since he was a quite a small child. His father died when he was very young and his uncle forced his mother to marry someone else. Gul Zaman was forced by the uncle to beg, simply because he was not ready to support the child.

Niaz Ali, nine, is the cousin of Gul Zaman, who also begs in Saddar area. His mother is suffering from Tuberculosis. His father sells combs. “ My father pays the bills of electricity which is usually Rs600 and I beg and buy my mother her medicine with the money I earn,” says the child. “Government has done nothing so far to eliminate this evil from society.  Nothing is presently being done for the rehabilitation of the child beggars. We are trying to create a pressure on the government to take notice of this growing problem in society”, Bushra Gohar of Human Resource Management and Development Centre observed.

In 1980s, the only rehabilitation centre “ Daar-ul-Kafaala”, was run by the federal Zakaat and Usher ministry but later it was closed down. It was a failure, and the children who were living in the centre started begging again, sources told Dawn.

Khalid Hasan, project manager, Combating Child Labour through Training and Education, funded by the Swiss government, told Dawn that there were 1,060 child beggars, who were trained in different skills to earn their livelihood.

Director, Social Welfare Department, Zarina Imdad, claimed that the provincial government was looking into this grave problem, adding that overpopulation and poverty was the root cause of begging.

“If I work at somebody’s house, they don’t pay well. I earn from 30 to 40 rupees, at least, on  the street by begging”, a child told Dawn. “It is a mafia and “Thekedaar” (contractors) pick and drop these beggars at their particular places every day,” Miss Zarina Imdad said.