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323: THE LITTLE BEGGARS OF JORDAN – For Many Children, Summer Holidays Mean Begging for a Living
16 July, 2008
THE LITTLE BEGGARS OF JORDAN – For Many Children, Summer Holidays Mean Begging for a Living
IRIN-News Wednesday 2nd July 2006 Adjusted to fit

AMMAN: as school summer holidays began, hundreds of students from impoverished families flocked to upper-class neighbourhoods of the capital, Amman, to eke out a living by begging near upscale coffee shops and busy traffic intersections. Despite scorching summer heat, with temperatures reaching as high as 40C, boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 14 roamed the streets looking for handouts from passers-by. Many had designated areas where others dare not trespass and some divided up the most lucrative areas – usually malls and coffee shops – among themselves.

Working the streets

A bright boy (with a promising future?) from the poor district of Ras al-Ein, located in the heart of Amman, sold chewing gum at a nearby bus station during the school year in order to help his widowed mother and three sisters get by. He made the equivalent of US $3 – on a good day – by selling fruit near a traffic light downtown. During summer holidays, however, he worked the up-market Abdoun district, where he begged for money at the windows of the many expensive cars that pass through the area. Those people had plenty of money to give away, and he needed it. He wasn’t ashamed, because he wasn’t stealing from anybody. He often earned the equivalent of US$20 a day – and sometimes twice that if he worked from 7am to midnight. He often took naps under a tree or in the shade of an abandoned building.

Cars bearing UAE, Saudi Arabian or Kuwaiti license plates were major targets for the persistent young beggars who knew their markets well. European tourists, diplomats and young couples were not overlooked. He’d been doing that for two years – since 2004 – and he knew those that gave generously and those that didn’t. Young couples – young men with their girl-friends or fiancées or lovers – always gave money to impress the girls they’re (sitting) with. However, boys did not have a monopoly on the trade. A sixth-grade young girl, from Wadi Abdoun, another of the capital’s low-income areas, was one of the street-urchins who begged to live. Her father had died five years before, and her elder brother is in prison, so the rest of her four young siblings joined her on her beat. Her over-riding concern was over boys who harassed her or her sisters and attempted to sexually molest them. And yet, despite her harsh circumstances, she expressed optimism for the future. She was not going to do that for the rest of her life. She was going to be a doctor. Poor girl; she hasn’t a snow-flake-in-hell’s chance! I, Daniel, wish her luck and wish her well. BY GOD!

Bruised economy

The explosion in begging came in the wake of bruising years for the national economy, officials say. While the kingdom desperately depended on tourism as a major source of revenue, ongoing instability in her two neighbours – Iraq and Palestine – have brought the sector down to its knees – I would like to know how King Abdullah and his families, relatives, and friends, and their entourages are making out. Another typical example of Arab double-standards: bloated opulence and shriveled poverty existing side by side – National trade had also suffered due to stiff competitions from China, Japan, and other Asian countries, while a surge in international fuel prices had led the government to partially lift fuel subsidies; causing marked increases in living costs. According to figures from the Ministry of Social Development, 15% of Jordanians lived below the poverty line – the actual figure could be twice or thrice that – which  meant that they subsisted on the equivalent of US$140 or less a month. Government officials, meanwhile, noted that the begging problem had increased by 20% and was expected to double in the coming months – and years.

Social Development Ministry Officials said they were looking into ways of tackling the problem but admitted that they faced an uphill battle. They took children off the streets, but as soon as they were released, they went back again. They needed to do something to raise the awareness of parents and families to the dangers of allowing children to beg in the streets.

Dear readers and fellow-Apes: MY COMMENTS: The article or report said it all. But! As always, highly typical of the Media – especially when it comes to Arabs and Arab countries – to print only half the story, tell only half the truth, and leave the readers hanging half-way between the beginning and the end, and forcing them to use, or misuse, their imagination to guess the rest.

The bare facts and the stark naked truth are: if I know anything at all about Arab men and European and foreign paedophiles especially, those children were too tempting to resist. They were sexually exploited, molested, and abused; and only God and Satan know what they would grow up to be, and what diseases they would have!

Furthermore, that was 2 years ago – 2006 – so only God and His partner, Satan, know how serious it has become today and how worse it’s going to be tomorrow. Also, I, Daniel in The Lion’s Den, do not believe for one moment that these conditions, and these heinous and hideous crimes, are restricted to Amman alone. These conditions, and these physical and child-sexual exploitations, abuses, and molestations exist in all the major cities and towns (and even in villages) in Jordan and in all Arab and Arab-speaking countries – especially.

Posted by akill 03:29 | General | Comment(0) | Permalink

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