Begging for Change Research findings and recommendations on forced child begging in Albania/Greece, India and Senegal

This report is based on research conducted in Albania and Greece, India and Senegal, and looks at the phenomenon of forced child begging both in its local specifics and global commonalities. Forced child begging involves forcing boys and girls to beg through physical or psychological coercion. It falls into the category of forced labour as it is “work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”

Forced child begging offers an important focus for the struggle for children’s rights in that it represents one of the most extreme, yet troublingly commonplace, forms of exploitation of children in the world today. It is also an indicator of a general failure of states to protect their children.

Forced child begging takes on different forms. The research shows that children may be forced to beg by their parents or guardians. Others are exploited in this way by third parties, including cases of children trafficked into begging by informal networks or organised criminal gangs, forced child begging linked to drug addiction in India and, in West Africa, children forced to beg by Koranic teachers.