An encounter with child beggars!

An encounter with the child beggars!

Today while walking in a nearby park, came across a bitterly crying small girl of Afghan origin. We went towards her and asked her if some thing went wrong with her. She was barely 6,7 years old a beautiful young lady holding a wiper and duster in her hand. I first talked to her in Pushtu but she told me that she is better in Urdu, therefore we conversed in Urdu. She told that her brother and sister are taken away by police to the police station and that is the reason of her crying . She pointed to a nearby police station across the road and further told us that her father has died and the mother is under debt, therefore they are working or begging to help her out. She told us that the mother is studying Quran at home and they live in Golra.(Golra is a nearby slums)
The girl was wearing nice clothes but quite a bit dusty and dirty. We decided to help her as we approached the road she pointed to the oncoming police truck," this is it, my brother and sister are inside this truck. We signalled the truck to stop. It was full with small kids like them and a whole team of police was sitting with them and on the front seat in plain clothes. One of the gentleman came down and told us that they are from  Police working with Child protection and welfare bureau, CPWB  . These kids run after cars on busy thoroughfares and any of them can come under the wheels and any bad accidents can happen. No one under 14 is  allowed on road to beg or work.( Why the over 14 then?) We take  these kids  into custody and hand them over to Child protection agency , who sends them to schools.The small ones go to Edhi centre from there they are handed over to their parents with an affidavit that they would not beg again.
A boy screamed from the truck , they do not follow it and come again. " What about you I asked?"
We asked the girl if she wishes to join them on truck because the gentleman told us that we are doing this exercises for their protection and to make them better citizens. She insisted that she wants her siblings back . On our assurance three kids came down from the truck , one boy two girls. To my utter amazement  small girl may be 3 and the boy a year older,tiny small lovely kids.The other girl may be 8 years old. The boy told us that he had Rs.500 earnings which he handed over to police . The other girl had Rs100 .They promised us not to beg and went to towards their home.
Such a weired feeling  about their mother , how she left these tiny small  kids on the streets to beg and run after cars and how  are we promoting these beggars by giving our alms, charity  and donations.How could we help these kids to be  useful  and productive citizenz of Pakistan?
Are we the counter parts to help these emotional black mailers? There are so many unanswered questions...

Abida Rahmani
 Islamabad Pakistan
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