KMA, Social Welfare Department to clear child beggars off streets

The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) is working with the Department of Social Welfare to clear the streets of child beggars.

“The presence of the teeming child beggars on our streets, most of them migrating from foreign countries, is becoming an albatross on our neck,” Mr. Osei Assibey-Antwi, the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), bemoaned.

The MCE, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), on the sidelines of a meeting organized by the Assembly in Kumasi, said the authorities had also contacted the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) on the issue.

“We want the GIS to facilitate the screening and identification of these migrant minors for the necessary actions to be taken,” he confirmed.

According to him, the Assembly had been inundated with reports and concerns of the activities of these child beggars.

Consequently, the right thing ought to be done to ensure the safety of the minors, who are used by their parents to beg for alms.

Information gathered by the GNA indicated that the majority of these children migrated with their parents from the Sahel Region, which had in recent times been hit by conflicts.

They have found safe havens in some mosques in Ghana’s second-largest city, with the majority of them perching at the Kumasi Central Mosque.

Mr. Assibey-Antwi affirmed the Assembly’s resolve to work in ensuring the safety of the vulnerable minors.