CITIES DIVIDED OVER HOW TO ADDRESS ISSUE OF BEGGING

Whether it is offering people work and education or threatening them with prison or, worse still, deportation, cities around the world have wildly different ways of dealing with begging.

The city fathers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, clearly favour the carrot over the stick. For the past two years, they have run an initiative called There’s A Better Way, which employs up to ten so-called panhandlers every day, paying them around £6.80 an hour to help with municipal work, such as weeding and picking up litter.

In the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka, which has tried unsuccessfully in the past to eradicate street beggars altogether, authorities have set aside a 15-acre site to offer training to those who spend their days and nights on the streets, with courses in farming, sewing and cooking among those on offer. In the New Zealand capital of Wellington, officials have resisted calls for a byelaw banning begging, instead adopting a two-step approach of advocacy and street management. It has explored novel ideas, such as educating beggars on street etiquette, and encouraging people to give vouchers instead of money.

Some cities, however, adopt a hardline approach. Last year, authorities in Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, rounded up 413 beggars, before deporting dozens of them to neighbouring Niger. Street begging is illegal in the city, and can be punishable by up to three months’ imprisonment and fines, a stance that has led to criticism from human rights groups.