On a dusty afternoon at the busy, noisy streets approaching the Secunderabad Railway Station in India, we met a woman. With a baby dangling on one arm and a scarf tied around the head, she looked like a nursing mother. “My child is suffering. I have given her medicines. But, her health is getting worse. I have to take her to the hospital. Can you spare some money?” she pleaded.
When we asked her about what happened to the baby, she pulled out a plastic bag full of medicines and said that she has been giving them to the baby. But, she was not sure about what the exact illness was. Vexed with our questions, she huffed and quickly started soliciting other passengers rushing around the railway station.
Image: 7MBWe met three other women as well – Kotamma, Mariamma, and Durgamma. All of them had the same look (that of a nursing mother with a dangling baby) and the same story to tell – they come from a town called Guntur, and that they have no other choice but to beg – so that they could take their child to the hospital. Their child is a bait.
Covered in dirty, ragged cloth, their faces exposed to the burning sun, the babies, barely months old, are almost always sleeping – or are they drugged?
This is not an isolated incident. It is a common sight in India, the world’s fastest growing economy. Across India’s bustling cities, babies are bait for begging and children crouch at traffic signals, markets, and temples, seeking alms. Over 300,000 children are drugged, beaten and forced to beg ever day. Children are maimed, their eyes and face burnt with acid and their limbs amputated to elicit greater sympathy and alms. As revealed by a CNN-IBN investigation, some qualified doctors agree to amputate a child’s limbs for less than $200, so that they can be left to beg. In some cases, children are victims of organ trade.
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