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Begging on busy streets of Shanghai is serious business

Mark O'Neill

BEGGARS ARE no strangers to the busy streets of Shanghai. In the past few months, their numbers have swelled thanks to a new group who pursue their work with grit and determination - the lame.

Walk along Nanjing Road, Huai Hai Road and other busy thoroughfares and you will see beggars blind, lame and deformed. They crowd busy intersections and sit in the middle of the pavement.

The sight of lame and crippled beggars on the streets does not fit into Shanghai's vision of itself as a modern international metropolis.

But removing these unwelcome visitors will not be easy because of a recent change in the law and the highly organised traffic that brings them here - a major reason why many Shanghai people have no sympathy for those they consider professional beggars.

The local press is full of stories of how brokers go to poor villages, rent crippled children from their parents and bring them to Shanghai in search of sympathy and money.

One such employee could be a disabled youth of about 17, who begs below a flyover close to Shanghai railway station. His right leg bent over his shoulder, wearing a coffee-coloured jacket and rope wrapped round his waist, he pulls himself forward with a rusty can containing about 10 yuan.

'I am from Henan,' he says - but there is no trace of a Henan accent, just the standard Putonghua they teach at school. 'I do not earn much, just enough to eat.'

The problem of child beggars, and beggars in general, has become a burning social issue in the major cities. In June this year, the government abolished 21-year-old regulations that gave police the right to detain beggars and ship them back to their place of origin.

The new rules have moved authority over beggars from the Public Security Bureau to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

With the police no longer able to detain beggars unless they break the law, the number has soared in major cities. Nowhere is the surge more visible than in Shanghai, most popular because of the wealth of its citizens and visitors, and its relatively mild climate.

The beggars choose areas most prosperous and popular with tourists, such as major shopping streets, the entrance to five-star hotels, the Bund, the subway and the approach roads to universities.

The city government is considering a proposal to make certain areas 'beggar free'. Beijing will shortly issue rules that will ban begging in and around subway stations, as well as within 20 metres of bus stops, building sites and many other places.

But the beggars will not disappear easily because of the revenue they generate for many people. Local media report that well- organised networks rent children from poor, rural families and put them to work on the streets of China's major cities. They pay a fixed amount each day or week to their bosses, who, in turn, provide them with food, clothes and accommodation.

Fuyang, 700km away in Anhui province, is where the trade in disabled children is said to have begun. It is believed it started in the early 1980s, when a couple from a village in Fuyang district named Gongxiao took their crippled son to the No.9 People's Hospital in Shanghai. As they waited on the square outside, many people came over and, seeing the boy's condition, gave him money.

When they got home, the couple recounted their story, and the word spread that a handicapped child was potentially a lucrative form of income. So people in Fuyang began to search for crippled children. When the supply in Anhui ran out, they went to other poor inland provinces, like Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Shaanxi.

They look for children from seven to 15, because younger ones are liable to fall sick and older ones are big and too hard to teach. Parents hand over disabled children because they are unable to work and the state provides no welfare. The brokers pay a deposit, which is refunded when they return the child, and sign a contract for an annual rent. Prices range from 2,000 to 6,000 yuan a year. The more handicapped, the higher the price.

One of the highest rents reported was 6,000 yuan for a nine-year-old who is burnt all over his body and who earns 25,000 yuan a year.

The brokers teach the children to speak with an Anhui accent, and show them other tricks of the trade, such as how to deal with police, how to spot people with money and how to intimidate a person into paying. Many are told to say they were orphaned in a natural disaster and ordered not to reveal their real names or places of origin.

The risk for the brokers is that the children will strike, swap employers or fall ill.

In one case, a lame boy, for whom a broker paid a deposit of 3,000 yuan, was taken to Qingdao where he could earn 200 yuan a day. But he could not endure the heat, fell ill and died of a pre-existing heart condition. The broker paid his parents 20,000 yuan in compensation.

Brokers defend the system, saying it provides families with an income they would otherwise not receive.

But the flood of beggars has provoked a strong debate in Shanghai.

'I know that poverty has driven them here,' said Liu Guohong, the manager of a sports stadium. 'But I do not give them money because it goes to the brokers. They are bad for the image of the city.'

Gu Jun, deputy director of the sociology department at Shanghai University, said that, like Paris, New York and London, Shanghai attracted beggars because it was a wealthy city. 'It is nothing abnormal. If foreigners see them, it is nothing bad. This is a global phenomenon.'

He said that the government and charitable organisations should find ways to help the beggars. But even he, a liberal on this issue, said they should be kept away from major roads, scenic spots and shopping centres.

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