Opinion

Street cleaners deserve charity

November 04, 2018
Street cleaners deserve charity

Muhammad Ahmad Al-Hassani

Okaz newspaper

SOME street cleaners are seen standing in locations near shopping centers and traffic lights. They greet each passing pedestrian with a broad smile, although it is for the ones who pass to initiate the greeting according to the teachings of Islam.

Some of these workers greet people in a way as if they are looking for charity. Many people thankfully hand them something while others criticize those who do this.

Those who oppose giving charity to street cleaners claim that these expatriates earn hundreds of riyals every day from begging. They ask the alms givers to stop the habit because these street cleaners are not in real need and they are actually fooling do-gooders who show sympathy to them.

I have read many debates on this issue in published articles and on social media. Some people believe the cleaning workers deserve charity and some believe otherwise.

Some cleaning workers indeed resort to begging but I can say with full confidence that this is because the companies and institutions that employ them do not pay their monthly salaries on time. If they were paid their salaries regularly, they would not go begging in the streets and they would not find many people sympathizing with their plight either.

These cleaning workers might have paid thousands of riyals to the agent in his country to get work in Saudi Arabia. I do not know whether the money earned by the cleaning workers is actually going to their families back home or at least a part of it is going to the recruitment offices that obtained them their work visas.

Some of these workers, in order to secure the amount for the placement visa, were forced to sell their cows and land. Others took out loans from the banks on interest, which they would pay back from their meager monthly salaries.

These workers earn SR500 a month in Saudi Arabia. This amount is the salary of a university graduate back in their country. Because these people are simple in their way of thinking, they assume this amount to be big in Saudi Arabia as well. They are not aware of the high cost of living in the Gulf countries, compared to their country, until they arrive.

I remember when I worked in the Muslim World League years ago, the financial department hired 10 university graduates for its office in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. The salary of each of those workers was $100 a month. This amount was reasonably good because those employees were able to meet all their family expenses with it.

A cleaning worker after coming to Saudi Arabia finds out that half of his monthly income will go to buying cigarettes if he is a smoker — and many of them are. Then he will not have enough money for his living expenses, not to speak of sending money to back home to support his family. This cleaning worker will have no excuse but to do what other cleaning workers did before him — beg for money outside working hours.

At least these cleaning workers do not run after people banging on their car windows or doors of their houses, begging for money.

I believe that the cleaning workers deserve charity more than those who beg as a profession.


November 04, 2018
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