50-cm high beggar deported... for 10th time

60-year-old Fatima is only around 50 cm in size but the midget discovered that her tiny body could be a boon.

Using it in begging, the woman earned more than $1,000 a week and managed to sneak back every time she was deported from Saudi Arabia. This week, Fatima celebrated her deportation from the Gulf Kingdom for the 10th time but she gave no indication whether she would try to come back.

During Ramadan fasting month in August, Fatima remitted home nearly SR80,000 ($21,400) earned in the previous few months. In a bid to avert police, Fatima has employed her 18-year-old nephew, Ayoub, for SR1,000 ($265) per month with the task of alerting her to police presence and bring food to her.

Her brother, Ayoub’s father, also gets a monthly wage in return for food and accommodation for his sister.

“This week, Fatima was arrested again and police are planning to deport her for the 10th time,” Aleqtisadiya Arabic language newspaper said.

The paper did not specify Fatima’s nationality but it was clear the woman is from nearby Yemen as she kept sneaking back into the country through its southern border and heading straight to the western Red Sea port of Jeddah.

Fatima has selected Albalad area in Jeddah as her begging base as it is a key shopping centre which is visited by thousands of people every day.

“This woman has used her little body to attract public sympathy…most people who come to that area know her and give her money while many of them take shots of her or like to be photographed with her,” the paper said, quoting Saad Al Shahrani, director of the anti-begging office in the western town of Makkah.

“Our investigation showed her income exceeds SR5,000 ($1,330) a month…her brother gives her housing and remits her money to her family.”

Begging is banned in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil producers but officials have reported the seizure of thousands of beggars during surprise police drives.

In Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, authorities said they caught nearly 60,000 beggars in 2010 and nearly a third of them were Saudis.

According to an official report, nearly 59 per cent of the beggars were men, 25 per cent were women and the rest were children.

Under Saudi laws, national beggars are referred to the social affairs ministry to study their cases while expatriates caught begging are deported.

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