The Anambra State government has clamped down on syndicates using children to beg for alms in the state capital, Awka.
The operation was carried out by the Ministry of Women and Social Welfare Anambra State in collaboration with the Awka Capital Development Authority (ACTDA), where 16 children as well as adults were raided off the street.
Chidinma Ikeanyionwu, the media aide to the Women and social welfare Commissioner who disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday, August 14, 2024, said the flyover bridge at Aroma junction has for long become a den of child beggars who are used by syndicates to beg for alms.
“In line with Governor Soludo’s mandate of taking school children out from the streets, the Women and social welfare Commissioner, Hon Ify Obinabo said the raid is not to make the children victims, but to use them to get at the syndicates that uses them for begging,” the statement read.
“Obinabo also reiterated the state government’s stand in maintaining the low number of out-of-school-children in the state.”
On his part, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ACTDA, Mr Ossy Onuko said the operation is a welcome development of taking children off the streets and assured of his agency’s support in ensuring that the needful is done for a livable and prosperous homeland.
The statement further disclosed that it was a tough battle rounding up the street kids as they immediately fled as the enforcement team made to arrest them, with some of them putting up a fight.
They were, however, rounded up and bundled into waiting vehicles and taken away.
Obinabo said the operation will continue in all parts of Awka to ensure that the town was rid of children being used by syndicates to beg for alms.
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.
The Women Affairs boss assured that contact tracing of the parents of the kids will begin in earnest.
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.
