This is a story of Laila, whose only craft is to beg for money in order to sustain her family.
One beautiful Thursday afternoon, I went to the West Hills Mall with my dearest friend. After chilling and what a view, we left the mall only to encounter a young girl of nine years.
She just run and hugged her, and told her she has not eaten. We decided to give her some of the things we bought but she said she wanted money.
I was a bit curious as to why she won’t take the things because she was hungry. She told me she’s the breadwinner of her family, and if she takes the things she’ll eat it without giving her family because of the state she has found herself in, very hungry.
I asked where she stayed, and I was flabbergasted to hear that she walked all the way from Ashaiman to SCC where the WEST HILLS MALL IS SITUATED. She’s been begging all the way to that end.
So I became chatty with her. She told me, her day typically begins at 5.30 a.m. because, according to her, “my mum says I have to catch the attention of the workers who go to work early”.
She begs from that time to about 8 p.m. and gets roughly 5ghs to 10ghs ($1.13 - $2.26) in a day.
I asked why her Mum, won’t come out and beg so that she can be enrolled in a school. She told me people won’t have pity on them, they do with the young ones. So the young go to beg and the old sit around lazily watching the young.
They most at times sleep on the streets, caring less about the weather, caring less about what will happpen to them at night.
She told me they use tricks in getting money.
Some of the tricks are:
• Children approach their targets with miserable and pitiful faces, hoping that will convince drivers and passengers to give them money.
• If that does not work, they grab the targets by their clothes (very common) and in some cases they cry.
• If that doesn’t work too, the they follow you to where ever you are going.
Some individuals, out of pity, and others who see them as irritants, give them money, just to go away from them. Others are not that sympathetic and, therefore, insult and tell the foreigners to go back to where they came from, that is their countries.
It’s very heartbreaking if you hear their stories, very young individuals who have to beg to sustain their families. The situations they go through. People trying to take advantage of their penury to throw stones at them, kick them, call them all sort of names. It’s sad. It doesn’t hurt to put a smile on their faces.
Let's put a smile on their faces, it really means a lot to them.
