Before you give beggars spare change do you stop to think if you are helping or hindering?

According to the Mirror Foundation missing-persons centre and police it is probably the latter.

The lucrative profits from street begging have led to toddlers being kidnapped while some children are bought or rented from parents in neighbouring countries.

Mirror Foundation official Ekkalak Lumchumkhae says that of 400 children and adults who have gone missing in the past year just 17 children have been found.

The foundation searches for missing persons and campaigns against begging in a bid to stop child trafficking.

"Many told us they had been abducted to work as street beggars and flower-sellers," Ekkalak said, adding that most child abductions were by beggar gangs or sexual predators or for adoption by foreigners.

A foundation study last year in Bangkok, Aranyaprathet, Mae Sai, Mae Sot and Pattaya found beggar gangs rented children by the day or month from neighbouring countries. Rented beggars are in evidence at Mae Sot's Islam Bumrung community, he said.

Children are forced to sell flowers or tissues at roadside restaurants and entertainment venues when they turn five and elicit less sympathy as beggars.

Many children are transported from the border to Makkasan and Klong Tan in Bangkok, where they join other beggars in crowded communities such as Sai Thong, Jarurat, Klong Saen Saeb near Central World Plaza or Rangsit, Samut Prakan, and Samrong.

The exact number of beggars in Bangkok is unknown, but Ekkalak believed more than 100 child beggars had been rounded up last year. He said many beggars from neighbouring country who were deported sneaked back a few days later.

The police said the same thing and added that children were smuggled in using legal migrant workers as cover.

Ten per cent of 5,000 illegal immigrants deported each month via Aranyaprathet are children, most of whom have been rounded up as street beggars, the report said.

The report found child beggars or their families got Bt80 a day or about Bt500 to Bt2,000 a month and gangs preferred disabled children and toddlers. Children aged 13 or over are used as minders for the younger beggars or turn to selling flowers.

Police young people's and women's protection division Lt-Colonel Jak Yanghaipol said gangs lured children into begging with promises of money.

But most earnings go straight into gang bosses pockets.

The gangs get parents to sign "permission slips" so when beggars are rounded up the gangs can get them back, Jak said.

As of 1999 there were 6,903 beggars, Jak said, adding that police faced difficulties in arresting them because there was no direct law banning begging.

Police are waiting for legislation on begging to be passed.

They can act against the gangs using the Human Trafficking Act and the Convention on the Trafficking of Women and Children, he said.

Division commander Colonel Worawat Amornwiwat said a separate section dealt with missing children and cases were not closed until they were located.

He admitted begging gangs made a lot of money. Begging at high-traffic spots between nine in the morning to nine at night can yield Bt500. There are often turf wars to secure the most lucrative spots.

He hoped the draft legislation would have an effect.

Social Development and Human Security Ministry women's and children's division director Saowanee Khomepatr is worried begging is growing.

The division collects the beggars who have been rounded up by police, and adult males are deported immediately while women and children are sent to special homes where they receive physical and mental rehabilitation before returning to their families, she added.

While the government and rights advocates are worried about begging and the gangs that run it, people still give money freely.

Shop assistant Kwandao Kamnerdrat, 26, said she sometimes gave small change to a woman who begged at the pedestrian overpass at a Samrong shopping mall. The woman is often with a disabled child.

"I don't think much about it: I just want to make merit. I sympathise with the kids," she said.

When she started to think about it Kwandao realised the beggar probably made more than she did because of the heavy foot traffic on the bridge.

The beggar refused to answer questions but did tell The Nation a minder would pick her up at the end of the day.

First-year university student Budsara Uthaisri gives small change to beggars at a Rangsit shopping mall. It makes her feel charitable.

She once saw a pickup truck crowed with beggars being taken "home". Seeing how organised it is has changed Budsara's view. "I thought they were disabled and this was the only way they could feed themselves."

If people's attitudes are not changed the vicious circle of begging and child trafficking will never stop.

Anan Paengnoy

The Nation