Organized Crime
In our five weeks in China, we have seen the most beggars in Beijing. It seems as if they are flocking to touristy areas. In Tiananmen Square, they all seemed to be children or teenagers. But they looked very different from all the beggars I have seen in other parts of China.
Imagine seeing a child that is deformed. Not just any deformity, but one you have never seen before. He has all of his extremities and they are proportional to his body, but his legs don’t have any bones. His arms work just fine and help him to push himself around on a scooter. You watch him bend his legs into contortions to serve as arm rests or just as play toys while he begs for money. There is another scooter. This time, it looks like a teenage boy. He is using his hands to get around. You notice that his legs are mangled too. They have bones but they have grown together as if they were stuffed into something.
I asked our guide, Pen Pen, why I was seeing so many children with these types of deformities begging in the same place. She told me a very sad story. Begging is part of organized crime in China. People kidnap babies and young children in order to put them to work as their beggars. These children are sometimes stuffed into vats in order to make them grow with birth defects so that they can collect more money.
-Cami Morrison