The Industry of Begging

Organized criminal groups prey on your sense of compassion for children: From LivinginPeru.com 4 January, 2008 [ 16:30 ] Peru's Government Begins Program to Keep Children from Begging on Streets (LIP-ir) -- The Ministry of Women & Social Development (MIMDES) will carry out the first “raid” of parents who rent or use their children by dressing them in rags and have them beg in the streets, announced Minister Susana Pinilla. Although she did not mention where these raids would take place exactly, Pinilla explained that a ministerial group was evaluating the punishment bad parents would receive for these acts against children's rights. "Any person that uses a child for these activities will receive a serious punishment, this is to avoid the use of children for begging on the streets in different ways, for example, begging on a corner, selling on the streets or used as ‘mules’", she stated. She said the Ministry of Women would not allow children to work because this was a commitment made in the Free Trade Agreement between Peru and the United States. “We are firm on this subject, it is better that Peru's society understands the consequences of their actions, because we will use all the law's power to avoid this situation”, she stressed. On previous occasions, this initiative was named “Campaign against begging”, in which Peru's National Police along with the Public Ministry and the Ministry of Women took in abandoned street kids and placed them in the care of the National Institute of Family Welfare. News source: ANDINA Want to be shocked to the roots of your hair and beyond? Click on some of the "country" reports at Human Trafficking Website 2007-2008. Country by country reports of human trafficking, modern day slavery, contemporary slavery, debt bondage, serfdom, forced labor, forced marriage, transferring of wives, inheritance of wives, and transfer of a child for purposes of exploitation. Some sound advice about how to handle encountering beggars during your travels (applies the same to domestic situations. We have beggars now in Milwaukee that I didn't see even just a few years ago, preying on people's compassion).