The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr. Muhammad Bello, who made this known while speaking to newsmen at a media parley, said that “789 beggars, mentally ill and other social miscreants have so far been evacuated from the streets of the FCT.”
He said, “Majority of these numbers were repatriated back to their respective neighbouring states after proper profiling and rehabilitation.”
He stated that government was determined to ensure that “women, youths, children and the vulnerable in FCT are adequately catered for.”
Daily Sun quoted the Acting secretary of the Social Development Secretariat (SDS), Mrs. Irene Adebola Elegbede, who spoke on behalf of the minister, as saying that it “is almost impossible to eradicate the world’s oldest profession from the FCT.”
She said: “You cannot eradicate the profession; you can only try to contain it. It is the oldest profession. We are trying to discourage commercial sex workers in FCT, but they are smarter than us, they work as cartels.
“When you dislodge or arrest them in a particular place, they migrate to another place. We arrested some in Apo, within the twinkle of an eye, able-bodied men were begging us to release them. We need to cooperate; if every man decides to be disciplined, we won’t see them.
“We should collaborate to reduce their numbers on our streets. If there is no demand, there won’t be supply. We even trained some of them in different vocations as a better alternative to prostitution and gave them start-off kits and start-up capital, but, surprisingly, after some months, we saw them on the streets again.”
Mrs. Elegbede further used the medium to urge members of the National Assembly to expedite action on a stiffer legal framework that would help in addressing the daunting challenge of beggars, miscreants and commercial sex workers.
source:360nobs
