Hundreds of children beg at Bengaluru traffic signals, may be handled by mafia

While the sight of children begging at the city’s traffic signals may not be uncommon, a recent report has put the number of children pushed into beggary at 534.

The effort to map vulnerable children by the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority under the high court’s direction has also revealed that 186 children are involved in selling things on the traffic signals. It did not rule out the possibility of the mafia’s involvement.

A Data Collection Team set up by the KSLSA for the exercise has details of 720 children out of 886 working in 432 city hotspots. The team consisting of para legal volunteers, law college students, officials from education, labour, women and child development departments and police, surveyed the children from March 1 to 31.

When a man offered to sell a trafficked kid for Rs 50,000, the team alerted the DCP (Crime), but no action had been taken. The team found some groups using children for begging or hawking. “These children could be at the mercy of their handlers,” it said in the report. “If proper investigation is carried out regarding these groups, the issue of missing children could be cracked.” The team has referred to two cases of selling trafficked children registered this year at Basavanagudi and Chamarajpet police stations.

“It is necessary to strengthen anti-human trafficking units in the districts and also use technology for tracing the missing children. The retina identification method needs to be incorporated while tracing the missing child,” the report said, noting no police station has designated a Child Welfare Police Officer.

The exercise began when a division bench headed by Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka directed the KSLSA to assemble volunteers and officials to survey vulnerable children. The direction came on a PIL filed by NGO Letzkit Foundation for rehabilitating children forced to sell toys and flowers at traffic signals.