The FCT Administration has expressed displeasure over practices where families rent out their children to beggars, insisting that begging has been turned into a form of business in the Territory.
This is as the Administration expressed concerns over surge in the influx of child beggars who find their ways to the Territory by boarding trailers loaded with goods from the northern part of the country.
The Acting Director, Social Welfare, Social Department Secretariat, Gloria Onwuka, stated this on Thursday after apprehending some street beggars and miscreants in continuation of the Administration’s Operation SWEEP Abuja Clean.
Onwuka narrated that children between the ages of 8-10 were also trafficked into the Territory to engage in the business of begging.
She disclosed that so far, 210 beggars have been picked up from various roads of the Territory, which include 80 men, 58 women and 72 children.
While giving an insight into how the exercise was designed, Onwuka explained that once apprehended, the beggars are taken to the FCT Vocational and Rebilitation Centre in Bwari where they will be adequately accommodated, profiled and sent back to their various States of origin.
She noted that the facility is well equipped with every basic necessity of life to ensure their comfortability.
Onwuka added that the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, who was worried by the ugly trend, has given the Social Development Secretariat a marching order to ensure that the nation’s capital city was rid of beggars and criminals to ensure the safety of law-abiding residents.
Also speaking, the FCTA Director of Security Services, Adamu Gwary, said Operation SWEEP Abuja Clean was conceived not only to rid the capital city of beggars, but to also tackle the menace of criminality that is making residents apprehensive.
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