AN EXPLORATION OF BEGGING STRATEGIES OF BEGGARS

Shahzad Farid,Sajjad Hussain,Muhammad Zahid

doi:10.52567/pjsr.v3i01.180

Abstract

The study aimed to develop the typology of begging and beggars in Punjab Province Pakistan. The research employed qualitative research approach. The study used the data of a research project of University of Okara in which 15 districts of Punjab Province were randomly selected. A sample of 45 beggars was selected, who were interviewed by using an interview guide and observation. The study explored that child beggars exploit public emotions of sympathy towards children to earn money. Women beggars target donors and used door to door strategy of begging. The adult beggars used to expose their poverty and exploit religious feelings of people. The study concluded that the general strategies of begging are the exposition of destitution, sympathy gaining, exploitation of emotions and allocating places of begging. The study suggests reinstating the value of social support among families of beggars in relation with their rehabilitation. Keywords: Begging, Beggars’ strategies, Child beggars, Women beggars, Disabled beggars.

Highlights

Begging has been associated with poverty (Weiss, 2007; Ahamdi, 2010; Gloria & Samuel, 2012; Onagun, 2016) but it is a skill which requires training and practice (Tesăr, 2015)
Professional beggars are trained in begging because it is their job, they are very keen in understating the human emotions and exploiting them
The study focused upon the begging with the perspective of beggars in order to get insight of the issue

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Begging has been associated with poverty (Weiss, 2007; Ahamdi, 2010; Gloria & Samuel, 2012; Onagun, 2016) but it is a skill which requires training and practice (Tesăr, 2015). One of the interesting types of begging that Ayoob (2019) explored is small merchant beggars, who used to have some goods in their hands and force people to buy from them, while their intentions are only to seek money without selling anything. The first category of the beggars are those people who have their homes, spend most of the time on the street for begging and have contact with their family and relatives. The second category of beggars are those individuals who lives in the streets, have no contact with their family and relatives and called homeless people. They found that nearly 18% of the beggars in Tanzania are beggars of the streets. A professional team hired by University of Okara collected the data from beggars using snowball sampling techniques from the randomly selected regions of the Punjab province (see table 1)

15 Attock

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION