Across Nigeria, it is common for beggars to use children to solicit for arms, hoping that they will elicit sympathy from members of the public. In many cases, children have even been kidnapped and used for this purposes, while child minders have also been known to use kids kept in their care for this purpose.
Yesterday, Hadiza Nosiru and Salamotu Salitu were arrested by the monitoring team of Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development. According to the ministry, the women were not the biological mothers of the babies and were just using the babies, one with the full cooperation of her mother.
Apparently, the babies were given out to the women by their parents, who are paid daily. Both women have been taken to the Rehabilitation and Training Centre at Majidun, near Ikorodu.
One of the babies' mothers, who was paraded at the state secretariat on Alausa, Ikeja, yesterday gave her name as Tawa Aregbesola from Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. She said she had an agreement with one of the suspects to take her baby for alms begging between 5pm and 7pm daily for between N1,000 and N1,500.
Mrs Aregbesola, a mother of four, said she did not know where her baby is usually taken to adding that she was oblivious of the consequences. Youth and Social Development commissioner Mrs Uzamat Akinbile-Yussuf said efforts would be intensified to stop street begging.
She expressed displeasure at the use of babies for begging, exposing them to hazards on the streets and urged the public to help the government in eradicating the menace. The commissioner noted that the practice was prevalent among female beggars especially from the north and promised to take legal steps to deter others who may also want to indulge in the habit.
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