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By Madu Obi
The Anambra State government has launched an operation against syndicates allegedly using children to beg for alms in Awka, the state capital.
During a joint operation involving the Ministry of Women Affairs and the Awka Capital Development Authority (ACTDA) on Tuesday, no fewer than 30 child beggars and their adult accomplice, were arrested.
It was a tough battle rounding up the street kids as they immediately fled in different directions when the enforcement team came to arrest them., Some.of them even put up a fight, but they were rounded up and bundled into waiting vehicles and taken away.
The beggars have turned the Aroma flyover area in the heart of the state capital to a place for their operation as they usually besiege motorists and passersby demanding money, while their parents or guardians watch from a distance.
The state Commissioner for women affairs, Mrs Ify Obinabo said her ministry decided to arrest the children, not to make them victims, but to use them to get at the syndicates that brought them to that location to be constituting nuisance.
Obinabo said: " Anambra has very low number of out of school children, and we will not stand and let this children remain on the streets and used by syndicates to beg.“These children will help us to trace the syndicates who are the people that the law will catch up with.”
Obinabo said the operation would continue in all parts of Awka, to rid the city of children being used by syndicates to beg for alms.
Residents of Awka, who commended the Ministry of Women Affairs for the action said the worry is not only that the children constitute an eyesore as they run around during school hours begging for alms, but have also constituted themselves into nuisance as they always steal from people.
Miss Chidinma Nwaroh who works in the area said the children always cause riot anytime a group of charity organisations come to give them food.
"They start by causing a very rowdy atmosphere, and at the end, they even steal the phones and other valuables of members of the organisations, who were not suspecting that some of the children are thieves.
“Sometimes, you see them climbing the flyover and jumping down from that height. They constitute all manner of nuisance in that place, including stealing from themselves, passersby, and fighting," Nwaroh said.
On his part, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ACTDA, Mr Ossy Onuko said the operation was planned in collaboration with the Ministry of Women Affairs to take children off the streets.
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