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- Monday, 11-25-2024, AM 9:55
- Taisir Al-Asadi
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Since her husband died when she was 25, Umm Ali (53 years old) has spent her daytime hours wandering around the Shorja market next to Rusafa in the capital, Baghdad, extending her hand asking for “the charity of passersby.” In her wide green eyes is a trained look of sadness, often prompting people to reach into their pockets to help her.
She reinforces her appearance, which suggests a walking tragedy, with a sentence she repeats mechanically, the vocabulary of which has not changed, and in a steady tone of voice since she began her path of begging for sympathy: “I have three orphaned children to raise and pay the rent.”
Part of what she says is true. She has rent to pay for her small, run-down house on the outskirts of Baghdad, and she already has three sons, the youngest of whom is 24. They have all left her one by one for years, and she now lives alone.
She admitted this after she had seized a 5,000 dinar banknote, which was enough to raise the ceiling of her confidence in the investigator. She admitted, but with the same tone of voice that resembled crying, that she was facing great difficulties as she walked on foot, begging people: “I have to wander around looking for my livelihood in the heat, cold and dust, despite my illness.”
She added: “The police sometimes harass me. Once they asked me to pledge not to beg again, and they asked me to register with social welfare in order to receive a salary.”
She paused for a moment as if trying to choose the right words, and continued: “The care salary will not be enough for transportation costs, and I am a single, poor woman. Why do they pursue me and leave the criminal gangs, pickpockets, and drug addicts in the street, some of whom are foreigners?”
Umm Ali is referring to the begging gangs that share control over several areas in the capital, Baghdad, and use innovative methods to defraud people, despite the official authorities launching campaigns to combat them, as well as the phenomenon of begging in general.
He also noted that begging is not limited to Iraqis, but there are also foreigners who enter the country in various ways, including under the pretext of religious visits, tourism and work, and organized crime gangs invest in their networks to pose a threat to Iraqi society as a whole, according to officials and researchers familiar with the begging file in the country.
Half a million beggars
Counselor Saeed Al-Naaman, a member of the Legal Committee of the Iraqi Forum for Elites and Competencies, defines begging as: “an individual’s request for money from others using various fraudulent means to influence their emotions and compassion.” He considers it a “bad and frightening social phenomenon that poses a danger that reaches the point of destroying the foundations of society. It is a contagious disease, and is highly contagious. It begins with the individual, then the family that hosts him, and expands to include large groups.”
Groups that encourage unemployment, dependency and lack of production, thus wasting opportunities to develop themselves and exploit their energies, and placing restrictions on the dreams of their owners, so that they remain prisoners of collecting money to secure some of their material needs or their daily sustenance, nothing more.
Al-Naaman says that there is a delay in implementing Article (390) of Penal Code No. 111 of 1969, which considers begging “a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year for adults. As for minors, they are placed in shelters and employment centers that do not have the minimum tools for employment.”
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He believes that this legal text needs “activation, monitoring and continuous follow-up to provide these tools.” He continues: “Article (391) of the same law includes placing the beggar for a period not exceeding one year in an employment home if he is able to work, or placing him in a shelter, a home for the elderly or a recognized charitable institution if he is disabled and does not have money to be taken from, provided that his joining the appropriate place for him is possible.”
He believes that this article: “talks about tools that do not exist or that do not serve the purpose if they do exist, and there is no capacity to accommodate the large numbers of beggars if they are deposited to implement the rulings issued against them.”
The head of the Strategic Center for Human Rights in Iraq, Fadhel Al-Gharawi, estimates the number of beggars in the country at more than 500,000, most of whom are minors and women. He says that 70% of begging is organized crime, 20% is electronic begging, and 10% is traditional begging. He says that the latest forms of begging are: “electronic and health begging, and cover-up to establish humanitarian or social projects.”
He warned against foreign begging in Iraq, noting that it is “the most dangerous form of human trafficking” and that organized crime gangs are behind it, which he says have exploited the legal, security and economic conditions in Iraq to “activate the begging trade there.”
He added: “Organized crime gangs bring foreign beggars into Iraq under several pretexts, including labor, tourist and religious visits, and under the cover of refugee status.” He also indicated that most of the nationalities of foreign beggars are from Asian countries, most of them from Bangladesh, while Syrians come in first place among Arab beggars, he said.
It is noteworthy that the Ministry of Interior had deported more than 10,000 foreign beggars during the years 2023 and 2024 and returned them to their countries, while there are large numbers of them still inside Iraq without there being accurate statistics on their numbers and nationalities.
Causes of the phenomenon
In a study prepared by Karar Haider Hassan, entitled (The Phenomenon of Begging and Its Impact on National Security), published on the website of the Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies affiliated with the National Security Advisory in the Prime Minister’s Office on June 27, 2024, several reasons were identified behind the “exacerbation” of what he described as the phenomenon of begging in Iraq, including:
Poor economic conditions, widespread poverty and unemployment. Conflicts and wars, resulting in population displacement and the loss of many of their jobs and properties. Weak and unstable educational system, causing high rates of illiteracy and ignorance. Weak effective social programs to support the most vulnerable groups in society.
The study also pointed out the most common types of begging in the country, such as direct individual begging by asking for money or indirect begging by offering simple goods such as tissues and then begging passersby to buy them. Family begging and seeking sympathy through children, organized begging (begging gangs) and seasonal begging, during holidays and religious occasions.
In his study, Karar pointed out a new type of begging that has emerged in recent years, called “electronic begging,” which is done over the Internet, through some people exploiting social media and websites to request financial assistance by publishing touching stories about the family’s situation, such as one of its members being afflicted with a dangerous disease.
The study pointed out the dangers of begging on society, such as distorting its public image and increasing the feeling of insecurity among the population, and causing a burden on the local economy due to the presence of dependent individuals who depend on others instead of working, as it also contributes to increasing crime rates and the use of children in illegal work.
Accordingly, the phenomenon of begging affects national security, according to the study, because it is linked to the high crime rates in cities, especially if it is reinforced by the phenomena of unemployment and poverty as “two main drivers,” and that “shoplifting and pickpocketing are among the most prominent crimes associated with begging.”
Also, children are exploited in begging, which may lead to children entering the “world of organized crime or drug trafficking.” Moreover, beggars live in poor health conditions, which increases the possibility of the spread of diseases and epidemics. Begging affects the opportunities for developing tourism, as it affects the country’s image in front of foreign visitors.
A crime that leads to other crimes
Judge Jassim Mohammed Al-Moussawi describes in an article the phenomenon of begging as dangerous, and its causes are social or economic, and most of them are inherited professions, and they may be “individual violations committed by individuals or within groups or organized categories, and they may be within organizations that may extend beyond borders.”
He believes that it is an introduction to committing many crimes such as: “violating the sanctity of homes and thefts, all the way to drug trafficking and abuse.”
He says that the Iraqi legislator addressed the crime of begging in Penal Code No. 111 of 1969, as amended, in Chapter Eight under Social Crimes / Section Eight in Articles (390-392) and allocated penalties for it specific to “the adult beggar, the juvenile, and whoever tempts a person to beg.”
He also points out that the Anti-Human Trafficking Law No. 28 of 2012 identified eight forms of human exploitation, including begging, as the law considered the perpetrator’s exploitation of the victim and pushing him to beg as “a crime of human trafficking, as well as the forced kidnapping of children and adults and their introduction into organized crime gangs and forcing them to practice begging.”
Sondos Nouri Hassan, who holds a master’s degree in criminal law, warns that the phenomenon of begging has begun to take “more criminal and professional forms and is now being committed by organized international criminal groups,” saying that they lure children to go outside their parents’ control and then exploit them in begging.
The issue may reach the point of kidnapping the juvenile, deliberately causing physical disabilities to the person and then exploiting him in begging to elicit emotions, and that there are “organized gangs behind begging and preferring homeless women and children and hiding behind them more dangerous phenomena such as organ trafficking, drugs and prostitution.”
Because of its seriousness, Sondos says, national criminal legislation has played its role in combating it, by criminalizing and punishing it, and has followed a criminal policy in line with the degree of seriousness of this crime and its negative impact on society.
Including Article (390) of the Iraqi Penal Code No. 111 of 1969, as amended, which punishes the perpetrator of the act of begging with imprisonment, with mention of some aggravating circumstances: “However, it did not stipulate the crime of begging gangs, nor did it make the commission of begging by gangs an aggravating circumstance.”
Anti-begging campaigns
On March 20, 2023, the President of the Supreme Judicial Council, Dr. Faiq Zidane, issued Circular No. 379 to the Presidency of the Public Prosecution and all presidencies of the Courts of Appeal, setting March 22 and 23, 2023 as the date for launching an integrated campaign to combat human trafficking in Iraq with the aim of ending the phenomenon of begging “because of the threat it poses to security.”
Member of the Security and Defense Committee in the Iraqi Parliament, Ali Nima, stated that the Ministry of Interior, through its various formations, is continuing a broad campaign to combat begging in the governorates, listing the reasons for this campaign: “The first is to address a negative phenomenon, in addition to avoiding greater risks, as some beggars are tools for crime and many thefts have been recorded, in addition to the security dimension included in the campaign,” adding, “Beggars can be exploited in several dimensions.”
He points out that there are beggars of Arab and Asian nationalities who are already present in Iraq and that “their numbers are large and they enter the country annually through smuggling or through a limited-term travel visa, then they try to disappear from sight and later resort to begging, especially since some of them come from poor countries.”
He pointed out that the security services have monitored crimes of theft and armed robbery involving some foreign nationals who do not have entry visas. He said that foreign beggars
They are found in large numbers in the holy cities.
These people prefer begging to working, because begging provides, without any effort, several times what the wages of an inexperienced foreign worker, which range between $300 and $500, provide. Ali Hussein, the owner of a building materials store in Baghdad, says, “A beggar only needs to stand for four or six hours a day in a crowded street or in front of a mosque to get more than $30.”
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior, participated in the campaign that was launched on September 9, 2024, in order to carry out its duties in caring for those who deserve it. According to the Director of the Media, Arab and International Relations Department at the Ministry, Kazem Al-Atwani, it is collecting data on beggars who are arrested by the Ministry of Interior and conducting field research to verify their conditions. “The procedures for those who deserve it are being completed to include them in the social protection allowance.”
But the social welfare salary does not convince the majority of eligible beggars to stop begging, as it averages $200.
The Ministry of Labor is currently limited to dealing with beggars who are arrested and placed in the Ministry of Interior centers, and no one else. Al-Atwani points out that “a written pledge is taken from the beggar that he or any of his family members will not return to the profession of begging, and legal measures will be taken against anyone who returns to it.”
He stressed that the recent campaign comes as a continuation of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs’ work in “eliminating poverty after covering more than 7,000 individuals with social protection benefits.”
Social Welfare Salaries
Member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, Haifa Al-Jaberi, addressed, in letter No. 1153 on May 13, 2024, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, to include beggars in social welfare salaries “after obtaining pledges from them not to beg.”
They have already been included, according to the Director of the Homelessness and Begging Department at the Ministry of Labor, Haitham Aboud, who confirmed that beggars between the ages of 15 and 45 are now included in the salaries of the social welfare network, a measure taken by the ministry as part of plans to combat the phenomenon of begging in 2024, he said.
He stated that beggars will also receive soft loans, while “the files of minors and the elderly will be referred to the social protection system and housed in designated homes.”
The Ministry of Labor has set the welfare salaries as follows: A married citizen who supports a family of four people is paid a salary of 420 thousand dinars per month, while a married citizen who supports a family of three people is paid a salary of 315 thousand dinars, while the one who supports only one person, the salary for the two people is 210 thousand dinars, so he is paid only 105 thousand dinars.
Although the Ministry of Labor does not provide figures for the number of beggars who have benefited from the social welfare stipend program, Haitham Aboud expressed disappointment at the general lack of response from beggars to his ministry’s program. “Many of them return to the streets after a short period,” he said. He believes the reason for this is the organized crime gangs that control them.
He implicitly held citizens responsible for this by calling on them not to give money to beggars, “but rather to donate to well-known charitable organizations through the boxes located in the streets.”
He stressed the ministry's intention to collect accurate information about beggars and enter it into specialized databases to classify them according to different categories, pointing out the adoption of plans to include them in training courses and workshops "which will give them the opportunity to obtain soft loans that will help them start small projects."
As for beggars who are unable to work, such as minors, the elderly, and people with special needs, Aboud says that they “will benefit from social protection systems and will be housed in orphanages and nursing homes.”
But the effectiveness of this step is questioned by some officials. The head of the Social Authority at the Ministry of Labor, Ahmed Khalaf, stated in press statements that 90% of beggars have social welfare salaries, and they are among seven million Iraqis who receive it. This is an implicit indication of the futility of the matter, as the welfare salary does not prevent the continuation of begging.
Near a medical clinic complex on Karrada Street in the capital, Baghdad, a woman sat on the sidewalk with her two young children, wrapped in a tattered black abaya, and hiding her face with the edge of her black headscarf. She refused to give her name to a young man who was about to throw a thousand dinars into her son’s lap. She glanced reproachfully out of the corner of her eye, doubting the motives behind the question.
She said she was not committing a crime by asking others for charity to help her raise her five children. She pointed to the two little ones sitting on the floor next to her: “I have three older ones.”
The woman, who said she was over 40, spoke of the great difficulties she had been facing for about two years, when her husband went to prison on a drug-related charge, and she had to find money to cover the cost of living, and she raised her hands in prayer for someone who would allow her and her children to live in an unfinished building outside the capital, Baghdad.
She says that she knows about the social welfare salary given to people like her: “It is not enough.. I have no choice but to go out on the street.. I do not have a certificate to find work, and charitable relatives cannot help you permanently.”
Partial solutions
Chairwoman of the Women, Family and Childhood Committee in the House of Representatives, Dunya Al-Shammari, confirmed the addition of the “begging” paragraph to the draft of the Child Protection Law, which she said would be enacted in the next phase after years of postponement. She stated that “the draft law is sensitive and must be given great attention because it differs from other laws in terms of scrutinizing every paragraph and word in it, so that it is not misunderstood or becomes a loophole that can be used to commit violations by any party.”
She added: “Iraq needs a law that protects the weakest group in society, which is children, from everything they are exposed to,” and she acknowledges that the laws enacted after 2003 regarding the family and children “were not sufficiently sound to protect the child from all types of oppression or deprivation, whether electronic blackmail, begging, or domestic violence.”
Al-Shammari points out that the phenomenon of begging is increasing day after day despite the enactment of prohibitive laws and the holding of seminars and workshops that warn of its danger. “However, we see the exploitation of children in this phenomenon, which falls under the name of human trafficking, through the presence of groups that traffic them and force them to do so.”
Statements by members of the Parliamentary Committee on Children, as well as government officials, including those working in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, confirm that addressing the phenomenon and its repercussions is very difficult, and that the solutions presented and proposed so far are not sufficient.
Dr. Abed Hashem, a social specialist, stipulates that economic conditions must be improved before embarking on any campaign to combat begging. “Not everyone is employed, and job opportunities are not available to everyone, so the government must work to reduce unemployment and poverty rates and create job opportunities by launching new productive projects and employing those who have been unemployed for decades, and they number in the thousands throughout the country.”
He added to this the implementation of effective social programmes that meet the needs of those who have lost their breadwinners, to rescue poor families and pave the way for their members to complete their studies, or teach them professions that enable them to earn appropriate sums of money, and direct specialised educational programmes to those who need them in cooperation with civil society organisations.
He says that the anti-begging campaign that was launched in the last part of 2024 was preceded by a campaign implemented in 2005 by five ministries: the Interior, Labor, Social Affairs, Human Rights, Justice, and National Security. It required placing elderly beggars in nursing homes, providing care for orphans in special state homes, and taking pledges from some of them not to beg again.
He continued: “Launching a new campaign means that the old campaign has failed, so there must be permanent measures, not temporary ones. A phenomenon of this size cannot be solved through campaigns, and the matter requires realistic plans to limit it at least.”
He also called for activating Article 93 of the Iraqi Penal Code 111 of 1969, by imprisoning adult beggars whose health condition does not prevent them from working, and for traffic police to contribute to informing the relevant authorities about beggars at street intersections and other places, and to crown all of this with intensive media support directed at citizens to discourage beggars by helping them, and to limit assistance to “those who deserve it, who are not professional beggars.”
(W, L) is in his early twenties, from the Rusafa side of the capital, Baghdad. He suffers from a complete inability to use his left leg as a result of a traffic accident he sustained in his childhood. He sits in front of his stall, which he says he uses as a front to protect himself from police pursuits as well as begging gangs, which he says are widespread in special areas that he controls.
He says he comes from a poor family and couldn’t complete his studies. He receives a social welfare salary, but it’s not enough to support his family, which consists of three sisters, his disabled father, and his sick mother. So he has to ask people for help, in addition to “selling these simple things of mine, why not?” He says, pointing to his stall, which contains two packs of gum, small tissues, and irons.
He warns that in addition to the begging gangs, there are drug gangs, and that some have offered to distribute or sell drugs to him, “but I refused,” he thinks as he looks at the passersby before continuing: “I get 10 or 15 thousand dinars a day sitting here, while they offer a lot of money. Honestly, I hesitate even to sell cigarettes to avoid problems, but I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. For the sake of my family and my future, I may be forced to do things that I don’t want to do now.”
The investigation was completed under the supervision of the NIRIJ Investigative Reporting Network as part of the “Meydan Fellowship” grant.
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