Children forced to beg, Gore says

 By MARGARET TALINGAPUA

ONLY one per cent of street children in Port Moresby are orphans while the majority are forced by their parents and guardians to beg on the streets to fend for the family, it has been revealed.

Minister for Community Development Youth and Religion Delilah Gore said the department was working on a policy requiring parents to stop the practice.

“Parents would be prosecuted under this new law after the tabling of the Lukautim Pikinini Act in Parliament,” Gore said. 

She was responding to a concern raised in Parliament last Friday by National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop on the increase in the number of children roaming and begging on the streets of Port Moresby and other centres.

Parkop said nobody should be called a “street kid” or should be disadvantaged because the country was rich in natural resources, including land. He said there had been an increase in the number of orphanages in the country.

“I am not saying that these orphanages are not genuine. But is the department inspecting these places? What is the Government’s stand on this issue?”

He said PNG families were “closely-knit” that when parents died, the family adopted their children and looked after their welfare.

He said the intention of having orphanages was good but the outcomes were bad.