Anambra State Government has launched an operation against syndicates using children to beg for alms in Awka, the capital city.
The Ministry of Women affairs and the Awka Capital Development Authority (ACTDA) carried out the operation on Tuesday evening, arresting about 30 child beggars, as well as adults.
The flyover bridge at Aroma junction has for long become a den of child beggars who are used by syndicates to beg for alms.
Residents of the area told DAILY POST it is not only that the 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.
“Anytime a group of charity organisations come to them to give out food, they start cause a very rowdy atmosphere, and at the end, they even steal the phones and other valuables of members of the organisations, who were not suspecting that some of them are thieves,” a resident of the area said.
A traffic warden in the area said: “Sometimes, you see them climbing the flyover and jumping down from that height. They constitute all manner of nuisance in that place, including stealing from themselves, passersby, and fighting.”
Commissioner for Women’s Affairs, Mrs Ify Obinabo said: “We are arresting these children, not to make them victims, but to use them to get at the syndicates that brought them here for begging.
“You and I know that Anambra has a low number of out-of-school-children, and we will not stand and let these children remain in the streets while being used by syndicates.
“They will help us to trace the syndicates behind them and those are the people that the law will catch up with.”
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ACTDA, Mr Ossy Onuko said the operation was planned in collaboration with the Ministry of Women Affairs as a way to take children off the streets.
Meanwhile, 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.
