{"id":123157,"date":"2021-08-03T20:41:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T15:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=123157"},"modified":"2021-08-11T14:21:52","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T08:51:52","slug":"criminalising-welfare-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/criminalising-welfare-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminalising welfare issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Source<\/b>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GD28R5RD7.1&amp;imageview=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hindu<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance:<\/strong> This article explains why the government should avoid criminalising welfare measures<\/p>\n<h5><b>Synopsis<\/b>:<\/h5>\n<p>Before the legislature adopts coercive legal measures, a welfare response should be considered<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Introduction:<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Recently, the Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/it-begs-the-question-begging-is-a-matter-of-survival-not-choice-invisibilising-destitute-solve-nothing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">turned down a petition to restrain begging<\/a> at traffic lights, markets, and public places in light of the precautionary measures for the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>In doing this, <strong>the court rightly observed that being compelled to beg was a socio-economic issue<\/strong> that could not be remedied by directions of the kind originally sought. <strong>It required <\/strong><strong>a welfare response from the state<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This order points to the largely ignored nexus between coercive measures and welfare issues.<\/p>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\"><strong>Read more<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/sc-refuses-to-ban-begging-says-no-one-would-like-to-beg-if-not-for-poverty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SC refuses to ban begging, says \u2018no one would like to beg if not for poverty\u2019<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h5><b>Suggestions to improve State&#8217;s action towards welfare activities<\/b><\/h5>\n<ol>\n<li>During the decisions about criminalisation, the <strong>state should consider whether the issue might be better suited to a welfare response<\/strong>. For instance,\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Harsh Mander &amp; Anr. v. Union of India (2018) case<\/strong>: In this, the court held the criminalisation of beggary under the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959 as unconstitutional. During that, the court noted that the <strong>criminalisation of beggary<\/strong> <strong>served only to invisibilise beggars<\/strong> without doing anything to address the structural deprivations that drove people to beg.<\/li>\n<li>Similarly, the criminalisation of triple talaq by the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, does <strong>nothing to address the structural gender inequality, social stigma, poor employment options, and lack of state support<\/strong> which actually cause the deprivations associated with divorce (and not just with triple talaq).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Socio-economic marginalisation and poverty may frequently make people susceptible to exploitation<\/strong>, whether through poorly paid\/unpaid labour, trafficking and sex work, or indeed, begging. The government has to <strong>create alternative, well-paying and dignified employment<\/strong>, to remove socio-economic marginalisation and poverty altogether.<\/li>\n<li>Focusing on the welfare aspect of exploitative practices also sheds light on <strong>structural forms of impoverishment<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>In <strong>Suhail Rashid Bhat v. State of Jammu &amp; Kashmir and Others (2019) case<\/strong>: The court held that begging is <strong>evidence of the failure of the Government as well as the society<\/strong> at large to protect its citizens from the debilitating effects of extreme poverty. The court also held that it is a <strong>failure to ensure the right to life ensured under Article 21<\/strong> of the Constitution of India.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source:\u00a0The Hindu Relevance: This article explains why the government should avoid criminalising welfare measures Synopsis: Before the legislature adopts coercive legal measures, a welfare response should be considered Introduction: Recently, the Supreme Court turned down a petition to restrain begging at traffic lights, markets, and public places in light of the precautionary measures for the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/criminalising-welfare-issues\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Criminalising welfare issues<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[8873,212,8658,8667],"class_list":["post-123157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-begging-issue","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-judgments","tag-welfare-schemes-for-vulnerable-sections","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704738960},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}