Since the end of March it is strictly forbidden to beg in the heart of the capital with children under 16. The city council of the city of Brussels unanimously adopted a new regulation to this effect. Failure to comply with the new provision is punished with a fine of 350 euros, but not at the first assessment. In fact, every member of the police is initially required to inform the person of this prohibition, to recall the existence of the social services of the municipality and the rights of the minor. Only then can the administrative sanction be imposed. According to the municipality, the device aims to protect children.
Should other municipalities follow this example? No, let’s say more than thirty associations that have written a forum published below. They regret an ineffective and further precarious regulation for poor families and children. The mayor of Brussels, Philippe Close (PS), also defends himself with La Libre.
No, punishing parents who beg with their children is not a solution
The City of Brussels has decided to ban begging by adults accompanied by children under 16. The administrative fine can amount to 350 euros and seems to directly target Roma families in precarious situations without ever naming them explicitly.
Fatigue and anger. Because, every year, at the end of winter, repressive measures against people living on the street and those who beg are multiplying (1). While for them it is a place of life, of survival. However, since begging was decriminalized in Belgium in 1993, industry actors, research work and jurisprudence have constantly reminded us, over and over, that repression is not a solution (2).
The Municipality of Brussels emphasizes the interests and rights of the child and this is fundamental, but is this new regulatory system really adequate?
Already in its 2013 report (3) the Coordination of NGOs for the rights of the child (CODE) stated that “the legislative arsenal” was “sufficient” and that, instead, “a strengthening of the rights of Roma children” was needed. According to the CODE, “locking up parents who beg with their children, or punishing them with a fine, in this case very high, is not the solution to combat child begging, which is only the visible part of the ‘complex problem’. on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Constitution, calls for “a social response on a case-by-case basis, coordinated between the different levels of power and the actors on the ground who have experience in the matter”. childhood, the aim is in particular to ensure a decent and accessible housing policy, better school integration for Roma children or the participation of Roma in policies affecting them, as well as support for families who are victims of trafficking.
The regulation provides for a first “information” component (police officers inform parents of the new legislation), followed by a second preventive component (supported by local associations), and finally the repressive component represented by the sanction. On reading the regulation, however, the preventive component, of which the municipality particularly boasts in the media, is not detailed in any way. On the other hand, the first aspect of informing parents by the police is explained in great detail – and the repressive aspect is only conditioned by this! Not a word about how the street workforce would be strengthened, not a word about the possibility of social assistance to help families get out of begging. Nothing about the processes of democratic control of police work envisaged or about the way in which the various services would be brought to collaborate. Consequently, it is to be feared that, under the cover of protecting the rights of the child, this is indeed a “hunt for the poor” in the public space and a criminalization of begging, which is taking place.
This logic, however, towards beggars / homeless people and in particular towards Roma seems to be repeated. The pandemic has revealed this in general, as the Human Rights League notes in its report on police abuses in prison (4). According to the aforementioned CODE report, “the situation of parents in conditions of extreme poverty, including the so-called“ Roma ”families, crystallizes within itself the failure of our policies to combat poverty. We recall here, as the report does, that these families are victims of extreme discrimination and violence in their countries of origin and that, having the status of European citizens, they do not benefit from a residence permit for more than three months, that is to say no help. , mutual insurance or indemnity, except for urgent medical assistance. Begging is therefore a last resort, a matter of survival.
While everyone can appreciate the importance of imposing a fine of 350 euros on a person begging for a (sur) living, its operation in the field raises questions that the City of Brussels seems not to have taken into consideration. Many beggars are also homeless: how does the municipality intend to collect fines from an insolvent and homeless public?
This new anti-begging decree is above all a way for the police to make begging more difficult or even impossible by driving out the inhabitants of the municipality without any other form of trial… with their children.
To this transfer to other municipalities, Mayor Philippe Close responds to the RTBF journalist with a rarely achieved cynicism: “We encourage other municipalities to take the same measures as us”.
He also ignores the Belgian and European jurisprudence on the matter, which he does not seem to have taken into account during the legislative process. In particular, the suspended sentence (City of Namur of 6 January 2015) during which the Council of State found that begging with children did not fall within the powers of the municipal police (suspended sentence no. 229,729). The question of the proportionality of financial penalties for vulnerable a priori parents was the subject of a ruling before the European Court of Human Rights.
In Belgium, according to the opinion of the League for Human Rights, the prohibition of begging accompanied by a minor under the age of 16 would be a priori illegal, “every person should in principle be able to be accompanied by their children, even when they beg “. “This was the case of a young mother, imprisoned with her child, who had begged with her two very young children, and was sentenced on November 4, 2008 by the Brussels Criminal Court to a firm sentence of 18 months. imprisonment and a fine of € 4,125. With a sentence of 26 May 2010, the Court of Appeal overturned the sentence and acquitted the young woman “, recalled the CODE in 2013.
This new anti-begging regulation is like all other regulations.
It does not provide any fundamental solution, it displaces the “problem”, it does not recognize the particular difficulties of people, without ever attacking the causes that produce begging.
The city of Brussels thus continues the work of stigmatizing and criminalizing beggars that other municipalities started before it by authorizing “legitimate” violence against families fleeing the discrimination and misery they suffer in their country of origin.
This criminalization of poor families allows municipal authorities to show their willingness to respond to what they claim to be “the best interests of the child” when in reality precariousness increases with the consequences of further degradation of children’s living conditions. If the issue of children’s rights is a priority for the Municipality, as it is for us, other more effective and fair solutions would allow us to avoid falling once again into the easy paradigm of repression.
As associations that work daily with vulnerable and human rights concerned people, we can only oppose any form of criminalization of poverty. We call here and elsewhere for an end to repressive measures to respond with humanity to the plight of these families and their children.
Signatory associations
Dune, Street nurses, Rom en Rom ASBL, Human Rights League, Smes, Brussels Forum against inequalities, Design for Everyone, Equipe Populaire, CIRÉ, DIOGENES, Doucheflux, L’Ilot, Job Dignity, OCASA Asbl, Modus Vivendi, BRUSSELS COUNCIL FOR SOCIOPOLITICAL COORDINATION (CBCS), ATD Fourth World, Collective Making the Invisible Visible, CEMEA, Fronte anti-deportation, Social Work in the Fight, Collettivo di solidarity against exclusion, Brussels Housing Action, Youth Prospective, Culture and Democracy , The Brussels Center for Health Promotion (CBPS), Federation of Social Services, Christian Labor Movement (MOC), Maison Maternelle Fernand Philippe, Federation of Reception Centers and Homeless Care Services (AMA), Rassemblement Brussels People for the Right to Housing – BBROW (RBDH), Brussels platform armoede BPA, Defense for Children International (DCI), Resto du Cœur
References
1 “On the uselessness of the repression of begging: historical and legal aspects” Manuel LAMBERT and Jacques FIERENS
2 “According to the information gathered in various research works and by associations in the sector, the children affected by begging in the Walloon Federation of Brussels and in the Brussels-Capital Region are for the most part foreign children accompanied by their parents or members of their family in a broad sense, originally from Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and of Roma origin. »CODE,« Begging with children: the legislative arsenal is sufficient but the rights of Roma children must be strengthened. Analysis July 2013 »https://www.lacode.be/IMG/pdf/Analyse_CODE_mendicite_juillet_2013.pdf
3 Ibid.
4 Human Rights League, “Police abuse and confinement, Police Watch Report 2020”, June 2020, 26p. http://www.liguedh.be/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Rapport-Police-Watch-LDH-2020.pdf
5 Manuel Lambert, Jacques Fierens, “On the futility of the repression of begging: historical and legal aspects”, Brussels Forum for the fight against poverty n ° 5, 2014, 24p.