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Lone samaritan out to save kid beggars

As per stats collected by Abhyudaya Foundation, state capital has 13k child beggars who need to be rehabilitated

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A Delhi-based engineer Ashish Sharma gave up his plum job and turned into a crusader on a mission to end child begging. He took it upon himself to undertake rehabilitation of a nine-year-old boy along with eight more such kids who was drugged to beg.

The incident took place two years back. It was a watershed moment that motivated him to start a project named Unmukt India, in which he is walking 17,000 kilometres across the country to request the police and public administration to rehabilitate such children.

Like many other city-based NGOs working on child labour, he too believes in not taking pity on child beggars as it would help reduce or remove the exploitation of the young and innocent. 

“The money given to the beggars is all used by the Mafia gangs. There are small organisations and nexus who professionally train these children on how to beg. If they are hungry, Punjab has so many Gurudwaras, so ideally there should have be beggars in Punjab,” Sharma said. He is in the city as a part of Unmukt India project.

According to statistics collected by Abhyudaya Foundation, a city-based NGO working on child labour, Jaipur currently has 12,800 child beggars who need to be rehabilitated.

Manan Chaturvedi, chairperson, Rajasthan State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (RSCPCR), added that there is a need to catch those who are giving alms as well as those who are taking it, in order to removing child begging from the country.

“We think ourselves to be great by giving money to the beggars as we link it to the religion. There is a need to counsel both the parties. When nobody will give anything to these children, from whom will the uninformed parents and mafia take,” Manan said.

Sumit Chaturvedi, founder, Abhyudaya Foundation, informed that he tried speaking to child beggars in Jaipur but was dismissed by a couple of men.

“They told me I am not allowed to talk anything nonsense with these children. They asked me to go away,” Chaturvedi said.

He then went to Jaipur Police Commissioner, Sanjay Agarwal, with a project of rehabilitation of the child beggars but was asked to make a call on 100. 

Traffic police also needs to co-operate as child helplines cannot do everything, explained Bhupendra Kaur, team member, 1098 child helpline.

REHAB CENTRES ON THE ANVIL

  • Department of Social Justice and empowerment of Rajasthan has decided to open rehabilitation centres in Jaipur and Rajsamand for children below 18 years who have been begging for survival. Various NGOs have been invited to take the initiative to manage the centres.The department had also introduced Rajasthan Rehabilitation of Beggars or Indigent Act in 2012.lying along the roadsides.


EKLA CHOLO RE: Ashish Sharma, who is on a mission to make India beggar-free, poses at DNA office.

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