Morocco implements a social programme to reduce begging

08/03/2007

The Ministry of Social Development has launched a programme to reduce the number of beggars on the streets by reintegrating them into their families and helping them find work.

By Imane Belhaj for Magharebia in Casablanca – 08/03/07

[Imane Belhaj] Approximately 15% of beggars under the age of seven are hired workers.

Morocco’s Ministry of Social Development, Family and Solidarity is implementing a social programme to reduce the number of street beggars, which according to an unofficial study, is approximately half a million. The programme will encourage the assimilation of beggars into the country’s social fabric through family integration, institutional sponsorship and economic integration.

The programme calls for a "social approach" which requires the integration of beggars into their family sphere by helping them find work, helping them locate an institutional sponsor, and by creating legal consequences such as the arrest of beggars that return to the streets. A parallel approach involves raising public awareness of the need to discourage begging and to inform beggars of the options available to them.

"The phenomenon of begging is an epidemic that weakens Moroccans’ honour and human rights and tarnishes the country’s reputation," Minister of Social Development Abderrahim El Harouchi said, speaking on the occasion of the programme’s launch. Begging has become a circulating culture that eats away at the root of the social and economic reform efforts Morocco has made, he said. The new programme fits into the ministry’s larger initiative of helping all special needs groups integrate into a productive, social Moroccan society.

The ministry launched the programme -- jointly implemented with the Ministry of Justice and a number of government agencies -- in Casablanca under the framework of the National Human Development Initiative. Before expanding, the programme will first target Casablanca’s most troublesome districts, Anfa and al-Fida. Local authorities and associations will also be involved in the programme’s social integration components.

The programme groups beggars into three different categories: deviant beggars, beggars of need and beggars out of work. A 2004 Moroccan Childhood Protection League study showed that 56% of beggars are men and 44% are women. El Harouchi noted that approximately 15% of beggars under the age of seven are hired workers and are paid between 50 and 100 dirhams per week to beg for their employers.

The Tit Mellil Social Centre has agreed to study the phenomenon of begging in order to measure the number of people in each category and to help implement the programme. The Moroccan government has designated 38m dirhams to support associations involved in the programme.