The Youth Organization 'Akti' in cooperation with the Municipality of Mitrovica and the Kosovo Police, as well as in support of the German organization 'GIZ', launched today in the city of Mitrovica the campaign against the giving of alms to begging children by citizens.
Rexhep Gojnovci, director of the organization 'Akti', has informed KosovaPress that giving alms to child beggars by citizens does not support them, but actually harms them and has more negative than positive effects.
According to him, based on some researches of this organization, citizens are the main donors that these children are in a street situation.
"We are developing a campaign for public information about not giving alms to begging children. The idea is that we work with the citizen, because based on the analysis and research we have done, the citizens are the main donors that these children are in a street situation. Giving alms to these child beggars on the street is an injury and has more negative than positive effects", said Gojnovci, among other things.
Bedri Sadiku, coordinator at the municipal office for return and reintegration in Mitrovica, said that the provision of financial resources by citizens to beggars only pushed them into an even greater crisis.
"The main message is to inform the citizens that by giving these financial means, we deepen and push the beggars into an even bigger crisis", stressed Sadiku.
On the other hand, the police spokesperson for the Mitrovica region, Avni Zahiti, emphasized that the number of child beggars is not large.
According to him, during this year only two cases of alms-seekers, citizens of Albania, who were deported to their country of origin by order of the Court, were recorded.
He did not exclude any local cases, stressing that their number is very small, while adding that the police continues to have an active approach in this direction, in order to prevent this phenomenon completely.
"Now the statistics as numbers are not big. During this year, we have had two cases of identified beggars who were not citizens of the Republic of Kosovo. They have been subjected to the procedures, namely the competent Court, who have been sentenced to deportation from the country they came from, mainly they were citizens of the Republic of Albania. While we have local cases that have also been handled through the Court, but their number is not large. Despite this, the police continues to have an active approach in order to prevent this phenomenon", explained Zahiti.
Otherwise, the organization 'Akti' will continue with this campaign in other cities of Kosovo in the following days.