India has been the target of terrorism exported from Pakistan. Additionally, Pakistan sent donkeys to China. Beggars are the latest strange export from Pakistan. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq have now asked the Pakistani government to stop the flow of beggars since the issue has reached such dimensions.
Additionally, the majority of the pickpockets detained inside the Grand Mosque of Mecca are Pakistanis.
Beggars from Pakistan are migrating to West Asian nations in significant numbers as a result of the country’s record inflation and the impoverished Pakistanis suffering the most as a result of the rapidly rising cost of food and fuel. This worry was most recently expressed by the Standing Committee of Overseas Pakistanis.
According to Zeeshan Khanzada, secretary of Overseas Pakistanis, 90% of the beggars imprisoned in West Asian countries are from Pakistan and are being held in prisons in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Khanzada was quoted by Pakistan’s Geo News Urdu as saying, “Ambassadors of Iraq and Saudi Arabia have told us that Pakistani beggars travel abroad under the guise of ziarat (pilgrimage) on Umrah visas and later engage in street begging.”
The News International said that he also claimed that most of the pickpockets detained within the Grand Mosque of Mecca are citizens of Pakistan.
Zeeshan Khanzada briefed the Standing Committee during a hearing presided over by Senator Manzoor Kakar that there are close to 10 million Pakistani people living overseas, many of whom engage in beggaring.
He claimed that after obtaining visas, these people turn to begging abroad, noting that flights from Pakistan to the Middle East are frequently entirely occupied by beggars.
According to Pakistan’s The Express Tribune, the committee was informed that there were 200,000 Pakistanis living in Qatar and 1,600,000 in the UAE.
He added that ambassadors from Saudi Arabia and Iraq have asserted that Pakistani beggars are overcrowding their prisons, bringing embarrassment to Pakistan on the international stage.
Beggars swarming the streets of Middle Eastern countries have become a new challenge for Pakistan, which is already in trouble due to its economy’s decline.
According to a previous report from the World Bank, 12.5 million additional people fell into poverty in Pakistan last fiscal year, pushing the country’s poverty rate up to 39.4%.
In order to attain economic stability through a sharp budgetary adjustment of more than 7% of the economy, the international lender advised Pakistan to act quickly to tax its “sacred cows”—agriculture and real estate—and slash unnecessary spending.