(With photos) KABUL, Sept 23 (KUNA) -- The number of beggars in the streets of Kabul, especially child beggars, is on the rise with the approach of Eidul Fitr, the religious festival of Muslims to mark the end of the fasting month or Ramadan.
Wearing shabby cloths with worn-out shoes, beggars of every age and sex can be seen in the busiest markets of this Afghan capital of five million people.
Men and women as well as boys and girls whose ages are ranging from eight to eighty years can be seen in every street, market, square as well as in front of five-star hotels or restaurants known for frequenting by foreigners and well-off people for Iftar dinners.
While the women beggars sitting on different squares of the city or at some busiest locations, the children asking for money are running after the buyers in markets and streets as well as seeking financial help from motorists at traffic jams.
The most pathetic side of the begging in Kabul is the teenaged boys who are running after restaurant goers no sooner did they come out of the eating and meeting places. They are asking for financial help presenting them as orphans, homeless, hungry and so on.
Those teenaged boys are also running after locals, but their favourite targets are foreigners visiting shopping centres and hotels. They usually position themselves between the foreigners and the doors of their cars asking in the name of God for some help.
Getting little response from locals as well as foreigners due to the increasing number of beggar children in Kabul, some of those boys have adopted novel tactics to attract passers-by and persuade them to give a few afghanis.
At a street end or a footpath in front of some shops, you will find a teenaged boy in front of a tray with some broken eggs or spilled beans and rice, with his head down pretending that he is weeping.
Those boys pose as sellers of the eggs or other commodities. "I stumbled and the eggs fall down on the ground," he would tell a passer. "I've no money to buy more and my mother will beat me if I go home and tell her that the eggs have been broken," he would say.
This novel practice often persuade the passers-by and they usually pay them from five to 20 afghanis with a few words of solace to the child.
"I notice this boy every day setting in front of the school with the tray of broken eggs and asking for help from pedestrians," said Saleema Hashmi, a schoolteacher in Kabul. She said this was a new tactic to cheat people.
"This boy is sitting here from morning till evening with his head down and convincing pedestrians that he is selling eggs but those were broken and he need help to buy more," said a cloth-seller Waheedullah.
He added that the boy earned more than a labourer earn after a day-long labour. However, the young boy, introducing himself as Shakir, claimed his story was true and he did not cheat the people.
Mohammad Yousaf, official of ASCHIANA, a non-governmental organization working for the rehabilitation of destitute children, said they were striving to persuade such children not to beg. Instead they should learn some vocational training to earn for themselves and their families.
He said the number of beggar children in Afghanistan was nearly 40,000. Most of them are those who have lost their families during the fighting. However, an official of the Ministry of Social Welfare in Kabul said many among the beggar children are those trained by their elders or other people who are equal partner in their earnings.
He said the government was struggling to discourage child begging, but it would require time as well as huge funds to fully eradicate the evil practice in the war-battered capital.
Besides children, women are also begging in large number at every square and in every street of Kabul. Wearing burqas or veil covering body of Afghan women from head to toe, the women presenting themselves as war-widows.
According to the Ministry of Disabled and Martyrs, the 30 years of war and civil strife and the continuing insurgency in Afghanistan had left hundreds of thousands disabled, who are not only unable to support their families, but also become a burden on them.
Due to the increase in number of beggars during the previous once decade, some people and visitors are calling Kabul as the city of beggars.
According to official figures, there are nearly two million war widows in Afghanistan, while the number of street children in the capital Kabul is 50, 000 to 60,000 pointing to the gravity of the problem. (end) gk.tg KUNA 231016 Sep 08NNNN