Vietnam cracks down on beggars
HANOI - The authorities in Vietnam's central coast city
of Danang are claiming success for a project to
clean beggars off the city's streets.
Two months ago, they announced a reward of
about $13 - quite high to many Vietnamese
people - to anyone who reports a beggar to a
new 24-hour telephone hotline.
Danang is a major port and a tourist centre.
It is marketing itself as a clean city with no
social problems and none of what the
Communist authorities call social evils,
particularly drugs.
Since the scheme was launched, more than
200 people have been taken off Danang's city
streets.
Five negatives
The head of the Danang social affairs
department, Nguyen Manh Hung, says the
objective is to clean up the city under a
campaign called the five negatives - no drugs,
no crime, no illiteracy, no hunger and definitely
no beggars.
Most of the beggars are old people or children.
Once they have been
reported to the special
telephone hotline, the
people are taken to
the centre where they
have health checks
and are classified
according to need.
Mr Hung says that
healthy people are
sent back to their
home provinces, while
those who have physical or mental illnesses
are treated at the city's expense.
Mr Hung says the beggars are being removed
because they make tourists uncomfortable and
some are pickpockets.
Veterans
Beggars can be found all over Vietnam.
Many are veterans who lost arms or legs during
the Vietnam war, but Danang appears to have
an unusual attraction.
Mr Hung says that some of the people who
have been taken to the centre come from a
tiny commune in Tang Hua province far to the
north.
People in the commune believe they are
protected by a beggar God - a poor man who
died in what Vietnamese called the Holy Hour,
an unpredictable moment in time which
automatically brings deification.
The villagers believe that for good luck they
must spend several days every year travelling
and begging and return the proceeds to the
village altar as an offering to the beggar God.
By Clare Arthurs - BBC News Service - February 16, 2003.
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