Newclare resident voices concern over child beggars
The plight of children beggars in our community.
Substance abuse in our community has resulted in many unfortunate events. Over the years, many have stated that the flats in our communities are breeding grounds for bad influences, and when it goes all the way down to the children of our community, one can only hope that the cycle is broken.
A resident from Newclare who asked to remain anonymous recently complaint about little children who are begging in Newclare. According to the residents, the children beg every day, they go door to door about three to four times a day to ask for food.
The resident claims that she has seen a few of the children sniffing glue and begging for money at the robots in Bosmont. The children range from the ages of 2 and up.
The residents said: “They come in different groups but they are all friends. They come to my house and ask for food or they will ask for specific stuff like for tomatoes or potatoes for their mother. Sometimes when you give them sandwiches, they will open it to see what is inside the sandwich, if they don’t like what you give, they will throw it away. They are very rude.”
The resident added that one day a girl came to the house in her school uniform, and then the resident took a photo and sent the photo of the girl to the school she attends.
“The secretary of the school told me that the principal contacted the girls’ mother but the mother denied everything. They also told me that they are limited because this happens after school hours, out of the school premises. My concern is that if anything happens to these children, are we going to be held accountable for it?”
For a better understanding of the story, a local social worker was contacted and she said that this matter is a complex one. As social workers, the situation first needs to be investigated because there is more than one scenario, often the parents are unaware of their children’s activities, sometimes it is the parents who send out the children to bring food home, in some cases it is that the children are fending for themselves.
The social worker mentioned that there’s a high rate of substance abuse in the area and that issue also contributes to the children begging because their parents are not present or sober for that matter, however, these children are endangering themselves out on the streets, knocking door-to-door and the social worker said that the community should take the parents to task.
Other advice from the social worker is that residents should contact Social Development so that provincial social workers can come into the community to assess the situation and then depending on the situation, this will determine if the children will be taken by the child welfare or if the parents will be dealt with.
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