I think I have heard every argument in existence about NOT giving money to beggars.  I have heard arguments in China (“They’re not really poor, they only wear those rags when they’re begging, they work for a beggar king who wears 3-piece suits and carries a cell phone, it’s all a business racket”).  I have heard them in Europe (“You can’t buy just one flower from one child: you’ll be mobbed”).  I have heard them in the US (“They’ll just buy alcohol with it.”  Or the ever-popular “Why don’t they get a job”). 

In China many beggars are children.  The argument there is half right: it certainly is a business racket.  But it is driven by poverty, it exploits children and women, and trust me, they ARE poor.

I have been surrounded by children begging in western China--- one time I ended up tossing the contents of my change purse in the air and then running while the kids were snatching up the money I’d dropped.  I have stepped over and around begging babies in the border town of Shenzhen--- incredibly dirty infants wrapped in even dirtier towels sleeping on the pavement with a tin bowl next to their heads.

In China, children are both rented and sold into this industry.  Boys are fewer, and always rented--- girls are more often sold.  I used to turn away or try to avoid beggars in China, but about 10 years ago I saw something that changed me.  It was late in the evening and I was in a nearly deserted city square.  I was with my sister-in-law waiting for our van, and halfway across the square we saw a man with two little girls.  Something seemed “off” to me about him and so I was watching when he bent over them and was telling the bigger one something.  I saw her shake her head and back away, and then the man slapped her across the face, hard.  He put his whole arm and shoulder into the motion, and the sound echoed across the square.  The big one grabbed the little one by the hand and both of them came running towards me.

Our van came and my sister-in-law was pulling me towards it but I didn’t move.  The girls stopped in front of us.  The little one, maybe 5 years old, was panting from the run and crying in huge gulps, tears streaming.  The older girl was dry-eyed, with a bright red mark on her left cheek.  She thrust out her bowl and her flat black eyes bored right through me.  I put money in the bowl and backed away into the van.  The girls stood still as we pulled away and I could see the man approaching them as we left the square.

Whenever a child approaches me to beg, I remember that girl and her dead-eyed stare as she pushed the bowl at me.  So yes, I do give to beggars, especially young ones.  If I can save one child from being beaten or slapped at the end of a day by giving her some money, I will.   

But almost everybody I know tells me not to do it.