Wrong spirit in beggar bill

EDITORIAL

To give or not to give? This should not be a question to ponder at all on Christmas day. But to be true to the spirit of giving, we simply cannot let the cabinet's approval of the draft Beggars Control Act go by without questioning if this legal attempt can really help beggars.

This draft bill is the state's response to a visible increase in the number of beggars during the economic crunch. The number of child beggars at intersections has noticeably risen. A large number of beggars - mothers with infants, the elderly, the disabled - have also returned to the streets to seek money from passers-by.

Many are poor Thais. But probably more now are from neighbouring countries, mostly from impoverished Cambodia. To survive harsh poverty, they turn to begging which is more lucrative than farming in a culture of inequity where giving to the miserable is religiously endorsed as a merit-making act.

Of late, the public have been advised not to give because the independent beggars of old have become rare and many begging operations involve human trafficking. Although the advice is reasonable, many feel holding back in the face of pleading eyes hardens the heart and undermines the value of generosity when concrete state measures to help beggars are non-existent.

Unfortunately, help is not the principal agenda of this draft bill. When it was introduced earlier this year by the Social Development and Human Security Ministry, it was fiercely attacked by rights groups because it sets out to register beggars. This controversial point was finally dropped in the version that was approved by the cabinet on Tuesday. But what remains is still problematic.

To start with, the draft beggar bill overlaps with the anti-human trafficking bill, but with lighter legal punishment. If passed as law, corrupt officials can easily selectively use this lighter law to help traffickers ready to spread "largesse".

It also ignores the problem of cross-border beggars and human trafficking which requires co-operation from different state agencies to prosecute the procurers and to help the victims.

To fill the gap and ensure multi-sector input, the anti-human trafficking bill has national and sub-national committees in place. It supports the victims' occupational training and even allows them to work pending court cases. These crucial elements, especially the establishment of a special fund to help the victims, are non-existent in this draft beggar bill. The beggars are simply dumped at state homes run by the Social Development and Human Security Ministry.

Driven by power and a control mentality, the ministry boasts of the grave punitive measures in the draft bill - the death penalty for those who physically disable someone for the purpose of begging. But according to anti-human trafficking activist Eaklak Loomchomkhae of the Mirror Foundation, the ministry is highlighting extremely rare and cruel cases while failing to address the larger problem of street begging and its complexity, which cannot be solved by one sole agency. Nor by dumping them away from public view.

To be true to the spirit of giving, the public should not clear their conscience with a few coins. They must force the government to stop environmentally destructive projects that destroy the livelihoods of the poor, which turns them into beggars. Meantime, co-operation from all sectors must be mobilised to empower the poor so they do not have to turn to begging.

This is a huge challenge which cannot be achieved by a poorly-thought out legislative effort such as the draft Beggar Control Bill.