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“Professional Beggars” Emerge in Damascus
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Yahya al-Aous
The familiar image of beggars is fading quickly: shabby clothes and looking miserable or even having a physical deformity no longer strikes the passer-by as pitiful especially knowing that his own wallet is light. The traditional way of begging is not useful anymore for a number of reasons. First of all, most people know it is a trick and secondly, the government doesn’t leave anyone alone, as those working on the streets, beggars and street-vendors complain.
The government arranges for patrols in coordination with the local police, to raid and arrest street-vendors and beggars. Once arrested they are either taken to court or to the “beggar’s house” (where beggars are forcefully employed for a small wage).
Whoever created the trend of begging with a physical deformity should now urgently create a new fashion. A new method for beggars is wearing new clothes, sun-glasses and maybe even perfume.
These new accessories are more appropriate for women than for men. This means that post-menopausal women with no income, unable to find a job, as they grow older, find it more and more difficult to receive invitations from rude “clients” asking them for sex in exchange for not more than a modest sum.
A few days ago, as I crossed the street in a busy part of Damascus, I noticed a woman nearby looking at me, as though waiting to ask me a question. I assumed that she needed directions, but instead, she began telling me her sad story. Forced by difficult circumstance to leave her home outside Damascus, she now had to return urgently for family reasons and had no money to do so.
After only two sentences, I reached for my wallet and handed her a hundred Syrian pounds. I did my best to give her the money in a way that would make her feel less ashamed for having had to resort to begging. However, when I returned home later that day, I was surprised to hear from my brother that a friend of his had also been approached just recently by a woman telling the very same story.
Of course, the story has many incarnations; and I encountered what is perhaps the most simple version. Another increasingly popular strategy is for a woman to go house to house armed with a forged prescription, asking for money to pay for the expensive drugs which will surely cure her child of some mysterious ailment. Yet another example has the woman asking for money to pay for a religious sacrifice (usually an animal, and most commonly a sheep or a cow) in order to offer thanks for the recovery of a child or brother. Some people understand the game immediately, ignore the women and walk on. But there are always some, In all cases the passer-by’s reactions differ, ranging from the naïve and good-hearted, prompted by generosity to open their wallets, to the ones who understand the game and ignore the begging. Still others face difficulties about whether to pay, refuse and or jusexperience a twinge of guilt until he leaves the woman who asked for help.
in me completely and crossed to the opposite side of the street. I hurried to keep pace with her and continued asking my questions. She refused to answer and ordered
The task of identifying a “professional” beggar woman can be very difficult, as they look like most other people in the street. After looking for some time, in the end, one of them found me. She looked around forty, and carried an infant in her arms. She did not look rich but neither did she look particularly poor.
As the woman walked beside me, she pointed to the baby and told me that he was in serious need of medical treatment and that she had no money to pay for it. As a way to draw her out, I told her that I was a doctor and that I could examine the child in my clinic for free. She declined the offer, making it quite clear all she wanted was the money. When I tried to continue our conversation, saying that I would give her money if she would explain to me why she had started begging in this manner and why she continued to practice this “profession”, she lost interest me to leave her alone; simultaneously winking in an exaggerated way so as to indicate to passers by that I was harassing her. Faced with this situation, I chose to leave. By now, we had entered a shabby and unfamiliar neighborhood and I had no desire to tempt fate by waiting to see how her neighbours would react to me if they concluded that I was making trouble.
I left the woman and approached a grocer standing nearby, who appeared to know her well. The grocer told me that she had begun begging to supplement her husband’s income. Part-time construction work did not pay enough to support the family and her “innovative” method of begging generated sympathy and money from many people.
We cannot say that cases like these have become a phenomenon in Syria. Yet, they repeat themselves to the point that people have become used to them.
In response the government has chosen to combat the results, but not the roots of the matter. They have built institutions for the employment of beggars and homeless and agencies for fighting beggary and homelessness.
The conditions that force these women to beg are the same conditions that society at large suffers from. These problems include the lack of social solidarity, the lack of philanthropy, unemployment, general bad economic conditions. All these are the causes for social problems, such as begging. |
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