Stop Funding the Mafia, Start Saving the Child

I was walking home from university when I saw him, a boy no older than eight, lying motionless on the pavement. His hand was stretched out, palm open for money. I called out, loud enough to wake anyone. No response. I placed a few rupees in his hand. Still nothing. He didn't sleep. It was something else. Something darker.That moment haunted me. A child who should’ve been in a classroom, with a book in hand, was lying lifeless under the open sky, likely drugged and used like a puppet by the begging mafia that thrives in our cities.This isn’t rare. According to the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), over 1.5 million children in Pakistan live on the streets. Many of them are not there by choice. Countless are stolen from their families, trafficked, or rented out by mafias who treat them as property. Some are deliberately disabled. Many are drugged to keep them quiet or make them appear helpless, because the more sympathy they draw, the more money the mafia earns. And we, unknowingly, feed this cruelty. When we hand over money to a child beggar without question, we may be funding the very network that is abusing them. These are not harmless acts of kindness.They are transactions that help traffickers thrive in plain sight. If you truly want to help a child begging on the street, ask them if they want to study. Offer to pay for their admission into a government school. Help them buy books, uniforms, or schoolbags. Even a small amount spent this way is worth far more than coins dropped into a drugged child’s hand. It’s the difference between enabling a mafia and changing a life. Don’t give blindly. Don’t look away. If you see a child who seems unconscious, report it. That child might not need your charity.They might need saving. We owe them more than spare change. We owe them their stolen childhood back.