Vagrancy awareness campaign seeks to direct public generosity to those ‘truly in need’

AMMAN — The number of vagrants detained since the beginning of the year has reached 3,859 so far, including men, women and children, Director of the Anti-Vagrancy Department at the Social Development Ministry Maher Kloub said on Sunday.

The government has launched a national campaign to combat the practice and have implemented it in Amman, Zarqa, Madaba and Jerash, with impending plans to launch it in Salt, Irbid and the southern governorates, Kloub told The Jordan Times over the phone.

The aim of the campaign is “to raise awareness to help people discern the difference between those who are truly in need and those who practise vagrancy to scam people”, he said. 

The campaign in each governorate involves their local communities, who contribute to distributing brochures that include a fatwa (religious edict) and information about the legal framework of the ministry’s anti-vagrancy process and the negative impact of the act on the community, Kloub said.

He added that communities have also produced slogans and banners that inform passers-by about the campaign.

The director said that the national campaign is being implemented in cooperation with the administrative governors of each respective governorate. 

“These campaigns require the support of civil society institutions,” Kloub noted.

Kloub said that a simple check of a citizen’s national ID number reveals “all the needed information” about them, noting that in some cases, people who make their children practise vagrancy have possessions registered under their names, like taxis or cars.

Vagrants can make between JD30 to JD40 each day, Kloub noted, adding: “People who earn honest pay should not give their hard-earned money to vagrants without knowing for certain that the person is actually in need.”

The director called for amendments to certain laws and by-laws that could combat all forms of vagrancy, noting the importance of collaboration between concerned institutions and authorities, such as the Awqaf Ministry, the Education Ministry, municipalities and the Interior Ministry, all of which “can work together to combat the phenomenon more efficiently”, according to Kloub.

For his part, Ministry of Social Development Spokesperson Ashraf Khreis said that the ministry’s efforts are ongoing to combat vagrancy and raise people’s awareness of the phenomenon’s negative impact on society, with the aim of directing support to where it is actually needed.