Shopping centers seems to attract a different type of panhandler than what we are accustomed to back in California -You know, toothless, smelling of booze and beaten by the sun with flaky carboard signs. Well, those panhandlers don't exist here. Instead, you get a women wearing all black from toes to finger tips. They hold out a bag and murmur pleas for alms. A person told us these beggars are widows with nothing left in life; their husbands died and they have no family or anyone to take care of them. Kind of sad, scary and hard to validate -Could be men or teens under those abyas?
check this news article on it: http://www.newkerala.com/oct.php?action=fullnews&id=7039
1 comment:
From everything I've read this is true. Since Muslim women are not allowed to work or even be on the streets unescorted by a male member of the family (who need be only 5 years of age) they are left with no other recourse. The obvious irony is that they must become beggars, alone on the streets, who are then preyed upon as prostitutes by men. This happens to young girls as well. Hard to know what's under that burka but the men become adept at reading a lot from the hands.
I'm not sure this is any better or worse than our situation with the growing homeless population that includes both sexes and all ages. I DO feel very threatened as a woman, however
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