"When a poor man asks you for bread
don't say: excuse me:
because if the poor man forgives you,
your guilt will be double."
Augusto Ferrán.
Begging is a product and consequence, among other factors, of economic marginalization. Even though it is an unproductive and parasitic activity, it is inserted in the economic sector as the most residual and precarious.
In the situation of high and prolonged unemployment that our country suffers, begging has reproduced rapidly, generating activity levels between four and six times higher than those existing at the beginning of the 90s, although it is necessary to warn that the begging groups are nomadic, willing to move anywhere, with a very strong sense of the provisional.
Almsgiving constitutes a reproductive phenomenon of begging, insofar as it enables a continuity effect. People who donate alms satisfy the momentary need of the beggar, and, at the same time, favor their personal conscience. In many cases, almsgiving is nothing more than a remedy against "someone else's shame". Alms are given and the remorse of conscience is released.
We estimate that very commonly, in that piety of the almsgiver there is not a little hypocrisy and always a conception of the world, according to such a pre-established order, that, "as a poor man who is never going to stop being so, we must help him".
Parents make their children professionals in the art of begging, with minors fulfilling a seduction function over the attitude of citizens. The presence of a woman with a child is more eloquent, more sensitive to the social demand for alms, therefore, the representation of women in the begging exercise is greater than that of men. This disproportion, which is already important in the case of non-Roma people, is further exacerbated in the case of Roma people, in which the male population barely participates in begging.
Children, the ultimate victims of family manipulation, are the group on which organized begging is based. More than 60 percent of Spanish beggars are under 16 years of age. The child component in family begging is preponderant, it is the basic element that activates the attraction of alms, therefore, children between the ages of two and five are exploited, especially, and even children of breastfeeding age, as they further facilitate the pitiful attitude.
Child marginalization and underdevelopment stem from previous marginalization and underdevelopment, located in the family. The problem of the minor is therefore a problem of family root and it is in the domestic group where preventive measures should be focused. For this, it is necessary to overcome the ideas of the 19th century, which gave rise to the plaintive complaints; as simple and sterile as those of the couplet that we heard sing in childhood: "Poor woman, you make me sad / when you ask me for alms, / having a child in your arms / that, while you ask, cries. / While you ask he cries, / telling you continuously, / that before asking for you, / ask for your son first".
Francisco Arias Solis
