When traveling to low-income countries, you are likely to come across children begging for money on the streets. Although you may feel guilty for not giving them something immediately, you must also keep in mind the social consequences of your action, some of which are listed here.
Look at the picture of the girl closely. Imagine you are in Morocco. The girl finds you and starts begging. She follows you for half a mile while staring at you with her neither-happy-nor-sad beautiful face. Would you give her money? Would you give her food? Would you simply walk away? I gave her some candy, only to repent.
A couple of minutes later, I walked into a travel agency with an unrelated enquiry. To my surprise, I saw a government poster asking tourists not to give money, food, or other items to begging children. Begging is a chronic issue in Morocco the poster explained, and the government is developing programmes to reduce it. By giving money to the girl, I had hindered the efforts of the government.
Colombia, my country of origin, also has issues with begging. Begging by children or with the assistance of children may be a very profitable, yet illegal activity. It is so profitable that professional beggars rent out small children from others for around USD5 per day to beg with them in their arms. Others impose money quotas to their children and don’t allow them to rest until the have earned enough by begging. The practice is common in some tourist areas, as tourists are more likely to give out larger amounts of money than locals.
- Picture by Niños de los Andes Foundation
What can you do? Many countries have institutions that try to help these children; for example: The Niños de los Andes Foundation, “helps homeless children by defending their rights and helping them reintegrate into society.” Their motto is “Don’t give them fish. Teach them to fish.” Next time you travel and a child begs, don’t give them money. Instead donate to these institutions. In some countries, you can donate using ATMs; in others, you can donate in grocery stores at the checkout. If in doubt, ask a local. You won’t be sorry as I was.
Alexander is LetMeGo's co-founder and jefe. Here is his LetMeGo 
This is a sad and cruel reality. Thank you for sharing your experience and spreading the word about it. We can certainly help children in many other positive ways and contribute to stopping this abuse.
This is sooo true!!!!
Great advice!
I was part of a community to give bread and a hot drink to the people living in the streets. We used to do it every wednesday night. After a while i noticed there were lots of communities doing the same so this people was used to get food and drinks without any effort needed. A very few of this people was sick or disabled people but most of them were begging for money to buy drugs and they were used to take advantage (and food) from all these communities… They are used to pray, cry or whatever it takes to get free food!
Thanks for the article, it’s very useful, specially if you are not used to this kind of behaviors.
It would be interesting to also explore how people selling stuff in the streets, sometimes offer you a “Free trial” for a product or service and then they charge you an incredible amount of money for it!
Over 1 million children are trafficked globally every year. It’s time to abolish the exploitation of innocent children. Join an organization and get involved with raising awareness, and do something to fight this evil.
I am a member of http://love146.org/ and also support http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/
Thanks for bothering to give us this advise. It is hard sometimes to do what is better in a larger context than respond in a habitual way to ease our own inner conflict. Heres to happy healthy children everywhere!