16 Children, Others Arrested over Illegal Alms Begging in Awka

By Praise Chinecherem

Sixteen persons, including children have been arrested over illegal alms begging around popular Aroma Junction in Awka, Anambra State.

The arrest followed raiding of the area by
Ministry of Women and Social Welfare in collaboration with the Awka Capital Territory Development Authority (ACTDA).

The Ministry had continued to launch operation against syndicates using children to beg for alms in Awka, particularly flyover bridge at Aroma junction which has for long become a den of child beggars used by syndicates to beg for alms.

According to Commissioner for Women and social welfare, Ify Obinabo, the raid which is in ine with Governor Soludo’s mandate of taking school children out from the streets, was not to make the children victims, but to use them to get at the syndicates that uses them for begging.

She also reiterated the state government’s stand in maintaining the low number of out-of-school-children in the state.

Obinabo said the operation would continue in all parts of Awka to ensure that the town was rid of children being used by syndicates to beg for alms.

She assured that contact tracing of the parents of the kids would begin in earnest.

On his part, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ACTDA, Mr Ossy Onuko described the operation as a welcome development of taking children off the streets, assuring his agency’s support in ensuring that the needful was done for a liveable and prosperous homeland.

Meanwhile, it was a tough battle apprehending the street kids as they immediately fled as the enforcement team made to arrest them, while some of them put up a fight. They were, however, rounded up and bundled into waiting vehicles and taken away.

After the operation, identification of the children as well as adults began, and it was discovered that all the arrested individuals were not Indigenes of Anambra as some were either from Ebonyi state or Enugu state.

Residents of the area say 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.