Let’s tackle root cause of child begging

Dr. Leticia Adelaide Appiah, Executive Director of the National Population Council (NPC) says the issue of child beggars should be tackled from the root cause for a lasting solution.

‘‘Every condition has an underlying cause, taking them off the street is temporary, we should synchronise the short and long term solution to solve this problem. We should ask ourselves the reason they are in the streets,’’ she said.

Dr. Appiah was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Monday, said children were supposed to be in the house or in school and that their presence in the streets meant something was pushing them to the streets.

She said it was important that, as a nation, the citizenry should “agree that no child is found on the streets and ensure that children are off the streets.

Dr Appiah urged government to proffer stiffer punishments to parents found to have shirked their responsibilities.

“We cannot use tax-payers money to take the children off the streets, house and feed them, where do we want to go as a nation when we do that?”

She said all citizens had rights, duties and privileges, and charged the populace to address the situation.

The GNA has observed that Child beggars have virtually taken over the streets of Accra, begging for alms.

The Ghana News Agency (GNA) gathered that some local government Assemblies have recently driven a few child beggars away from the streets with the help of some security officers.

That a 10-year –old Abiba, observed by the GNA, not her real name, who said she came from Niger with her mother and other siblings, said she and her siblings begged for alms to feed the family.