AMMAN — The Anti-Vagrancy Unit at the
Ministry of Social Development has arrested 130 people involved in
human trafficking for begging during 2021, and referred them to the courts, in
addition to tracking a total of 13,500 beggars, mostly children, according to the
director of the unit’s director Maher Klobb.
اضافة اعلان
Klobb said 7,981 children and 5,577 adults were
seized in relation to forced begging.
The ministry’s figures showed an increase in the
number of male child beggars compared to females, with the number of males reaching
5,983, and the females 2,061. Adult beggars amounted to 3,056 men and 2,548 women.
According to Klobb, the ministry implemented 13,558
anti-begging campaigns during 2021, the majority of which were in the northern
region with 7,574 arrest campaigns in which 2,039 adult beggars and 5,535
children were exploited in begging, followed by the central region with 5,011 arrest
campaigns in which 2,875 adult beggars, and 2,126 children beggars were tracked,
while the number of campaigns in the southern region reached 983 campaigns, in
which 663 beggars were arrested, 320 were children.
Amendments to the
Human Trafficking Law approved in March
2021 listed the exploitation of children in organized beggary as a human
trafficking crime.
The amendments empower judges to issue a prison
sentence of 6 months to 5 years with temporary labor and impose a fine of JD3,000–JD10,000
on perpetrators.
Penalties are augmented in the event the victim of
human trafficking was a child, woman or a person with disability, reaching up
to seven years in prison with labor a fine of JD5,000–20,000.
Read more National news
.jpg)
.jpg)
