Baghdad to sweep beggars off its streets

Baghdad on Monday launched a tough new initiative to force the fast growing number of beggars off busy streets and into new social programmes.

The plan aims to remove the huge proliferation of street-beggars, many of them children, in the Iraqi capital in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion that sparked job losses among many of the city's seven million residents.

"We aim to put an end to this phenomenon that has spread in the past years," Iraqi labour and social affairs ministry spokesman Abdullah al-Lami said in a statement.

"Some have turned begging into a profession, as a way of making easy money and exploiting the children and the disabled."

Anyone caught begging would be detained by police and dealt with according to their needs, Lami said.

"The old will be sent to old-age homes, while those who don't have parents will be sent to the orphanages and juvenile delinquents to correction facilities.

"Those who have parents will be locked up for some time and either they or their parents will have to sign a pledge promising not to allow their children onto the streets for begging," he said.

However, police refused to take media groups on a sweep of the city on Monday amid concerns that fighting between beggars and police might break out.

"Since it will be carried out by the police and army units and there could be resistance from the beggars, they might have to resort to force," an official with the labour ministry said.

Last year the Iraqi interior ministry began a campaign to get beggars off the streets after police investigations showed that the insurgents were recruiting homeless people to carry out suicide bombings.