Begging: The Question

Experts on this subject say that some children may be from poor families in which everyone begs for survival; some left home or don't have one. Some are forced by parents with drug and alcohol addictions to get money, and other kids are ruled by violent gang leaders who demand they collect cash or else.

Dimmick once offered to buy a group of street kids in Bulgaria some food, but they couldn't take it, they told him: Their leader was watching to make sure all money came to him.

It's for those reasons that some say giving cash perpetuates a dangerous situation. "While it is the human thing to react to human suffering that you see, sometimes the immediate response of providing some help may do more harm than good, and we should look more toward institutional solutions," says Julius E. Coles, president of Africare. The D.C.-based charitable organization has worked in more than 30 African countries on social projects.

Coles says that if you have a compulsion to give something, food or school supplies are preferred. "But even there, the kids can turn around and sell it," Coles says. Plus, a tourist might not know what food is appropriate for a child, who may be Muslim or Christian. Items that aren't healthful, such as candy, aren't acceptable for any kids, Coles says.

The desperation of the children, combined with the relative wealth of tourists, has created a situation in which friendly interactions are rare. Shunning kids isn't enjoyable -- and it does little to assuage a desire to help.

Matthew Dawson, a graphic designer in Washington, visited the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia in November 2004 and was deeply affected by the number of young, poor children selling things or asking for dollars. "I gave money to a couple kids when we were with our guide, and he was just horrified," says Dawson, 38.

A swarm of children would gather after seeing that he was handing out cash. But the behavior Dawson adopted because of that was no cure for his conscience. "It was one of the saddest things I've seen, both because of their condition and the way you had to react to that . . . to have to basically just ignore that and push them aside and say no. And after a while, you couldn't just say no, you couldn't say anything. . . . That was just weird, and it felt very inhuman."

Dawson's guide, Soeun Saron, discouraged the tourists from chatting with the kids and made a point of taking them to a workshop where children learned to make traditional crafts to sell.

In an e-mail, Soeun explains that his concern extends beyond stopping a flock of children from forming around his clients. "Firstly, I am full of pity for the starving street children," he writes, adding that sometimes children will buy food with the money tourists give them. But his worry is that these kids will grow up to be beggars. As Soeun says, using a Cambodian proverb: "The bamboo shoot grows up to be bamboo."

Tourists offer a huge economic incentive to skip time in a classroom in favor of life on the streets. Soeun says Cambodian parents may give their children 12 to 24 cents in pocket money for school. By begging, they can sometimes collect $1 to $5 a day, earnings that make the kids feel proud, he says.

All of this well-founded advice, however, doesn't make saying no to a child in need any easier.

In Cusco, Peru, Lucy Bertenshaw is the manager of the South American Explorers' clubhouse. The organization provides travel advice, and Bertenshaw distributes a pamphlet that cautions travelers not to give money to children on the streets. In Cusco, kids sell cigarettes and candy late at night as locals and tourists leave dance clubs. "It's putting them at risk," Bertenshaw says.

But, "it's such a moral dilemma," she says. After 3 1/2 years in Peru, Bertenshaw recently saw a boy doing acrobatic maneuvers with a stick at a stoplight and handed him some change. "I gave him 50 centavos, because he's actually doing something," she says. "But then I'm keeping him there. . . . That's going to encourage him to stay." At the same time, she says, she's not sure he'd get off the streets if she didn't give him money.

Says Bertenshaw: "It is hard to give good advice to people when you yourself find it hard as well."

Lori Robertson is a freelance journalist in Washington.