| SHOULD MEDIA PERSONNEL BE REDUCED TO BEGGARS? BEGGARS ARE EVEN BEING TAKEN TO COURT Foroyaa came into contact with a technician who has worked for the electronic media for over 30 years. He had an accident which led to his disability. Consequently he is no longer working. There are a number of Media practitioners and technicians who are living with disability and have been pushed out of the system without any effort to rehabilitate them to make them live productive lives or assist them to have the capital to start a small enterprise to ensure their survival in dignity. Foroyaa would like to call on the Director General of the GRTS and the President of the Gambia Press Union to do a survey on the number of practitioners and technicians who have been associated with the public and private media, both Press and Electronic who are currently living with a type of disability that has incapacitated them. There should then be cooperation to find out how they could be assisted either by way of rehabilitation to carry on their profession or financial assistance to run small scale enterprises. The other option is to ignore members of the media fraternity at their time of greatest need and drive them to become beggars. Unfortunately, this is also not an option because beggars are being rounded up by the security forces and taken to court for allegedly causing public nuisance. A Magistrate had to caution and discharge some old men and women whose only crime was to become beggars in the street. They could have served one year imprisonment if they confronted a heartless magistrate. In their plea of mitigation the elderly beggars said that they did not know that begging in the street was considered as loitering and a crime in the Gambia. In our view, where there is no state social security system to provide assistance to the poor there is no moral authority to criminalize begging in the street. Such acts should be decriminalized and the Department of Social Welfare should be equipped to provide counseling and assistance to those whose extended families could no longer provide the support they need. As for those associated with the media we call on the Gambia Press Union to take the initiative to establish days to remember the founders of media houses who are no longer alive and whose operations have had decisive impact on the people and state. They should utilise such remembrance days to raise funds for members of the fraternity who need solidarity. |
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