You don’t give a minor money – Gender Minister to people who give child beggars money
Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Lariba Zuweira Abudu, has said government has done a lot to curb the menace of child beggars on the streets in the country.
According to the Gender Minister, child beggars would desist from going to the streets to beg if people, adults, do not give them money when they go begging.
Speaking at a press conference held in Accra, Sunday, 5 June 2023, the Gender Minister explained: “We have done a lot, we did some sweeps, we have gone out there with media to send them out.”
She revealed that her Ministry has engaged the embassies of the countries most of the child beggars are coming from and some of them have since been repatriated.
“They [child beggars] come from our neighbouring countries and we have engaged the embassies of some of the countries that we think they are coming from, Burkina Faso, Niger, we have engaged them and even we repatriated some of them about 400. They will go and find another way back,” the Minister noted.
The Gender Minister also attributed the persistence presence of child beggars on the street to the Ghanaian culture of “giving” to beggars.
“I always say, why should we give a child of school-going age money? It is business as usual, we also as a country should look at it.
“If a child is 6 years and he is begging, why do you give the child money? If you don’t give today, I don’t give tomorrow, somebody doesn’t give one week they will go back to school,” she noted.
She added: “So it is the culture, our culture of the way we give to these minors that is why they are on the streets so we should look at it as a country that you don’t give a minor money.”
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