Poverty, unemployment, lack of education, poor social protection behind the begging crisis in Pakistan

The beggars including Pakistani were highlighted in the global news recently after the Saudi government warned Islamabad to rein in the flood of beggars from Pakistan under the guise of pilgrims. It said the Pakistani beggars could disrupt Hajj and Umrah pilgrims— both sites the most sacred for Muslims living across the world. Begging in Pakistan is no more a need but has become a profession in Pakistan, according to the economictimes.

While social and religious norms, government apathy, and rising unemployment are to be blamed, the biggest reason is poverty which has led parents to drag their children into this inhuman activity. Poverty in Pakistan has increased in Pakistan in the past few years while consumer inflation has been hovering around 10-30 percent. “Destitution is also one of the factors that compel people to beg as they do not have sufficient means to support themselves,” reads a report by researcher Razia Begum from Lahore School of Nursing.

Imran Khan, a researcher from the University of the Punjab, found in his survey that unemployment was a major reason for people switching to begging. Islamabad resident Ishaa Sadiq underlined economic hardships, religious tensions, and a growing scarcity of essentials for the begging becoming a crisis. “The nation’s beggary issue is intricately linked with problems such as unemployment, low education levels, and insufficient social safety nets,” she said.

While there is a strict law to prevent begging in Pakistan, the government has hardly ensured its enforcement, which has turned begging into a lucrative, organised business by antisocial elements, said

Lahore-based political science professor Rasul Bakhsh Rais. “In urban centres where begging is more lucrative, individual freelancing is not possible, as city centres and traffic crossings are controlled by an organized mafia-type system run by powerful bosses,” he said.

The begging mafias in Pakistan resort to kidnapping children and mutiliate their body parts to make them ready for begging. Yet, the government agencies ignore the sensitive issue, said Muhammad Faizan Akhtar of Lahore University of Management Sciences. “Since the beggar mafias can operate due to a lack of government regulation on begging, therefore, when the NGOs and government will be able to keep a check on the areas that are being regulated by begging, it will become difficult for them to operate,” he said.

School dropouts are vulnerable to joining begging as Pakistan lacks social safety nets and protection for children, especially for those from rural areas and the poor. About 60 percent of youth in Pakistan are unemployed, which was the major driver of the export of beggars to Saudi, remarked Pakistani parliamentarians. However, the government appears helpless in addressing the problem. "If not impossible, it is very difficult to uproot beggary," said Minister for Social Welfare (Sindh) Mir Tariq Talpur.

Pakistani national Mehak Ali blamed the government agencies for supporting begging when they were supposed to stop it and rehabilitate beggars. “Poor implementation of the laws and police accepting bribes from beggar mafias has allowed the practice to continue unabated. The government’s failure to facilitate the poorer segments of society has made the poor more vulnerable to beggar mafias and traffickers,” she said.

While the ground situation has ceased to improve, overseas nationals have been embarrassed over the export of Pakistani beggars. “We must ask ourselves: why are our fellow citizens being driven to such desperate measures? Is it solely poverty, or is it the lack of opportunities, inadequate education or systemic failures that are compelling them to resort to begging in foreign lands?” said Jeddah-based Pakistani national Zarsha Naveed.