Spa Workers Resort To Panhandling In Bali After Being Laid-Off

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The Badung Public Civil Service has confirmed that the amount of beggars in the Badung area has increased in 2021.

The Head of Badung Public Civil Service Officer, I Gusti Agung Ketut Suryanegara confirmed that the increased poverty rates are one of the main factors in the growing number of beggars in the Badung area. “The amount of beggar’s that we’ve detained in the first three months of 2021 has increased by 10% in comparison to 2020, and some of those people were previously spa workers in Badung before getting laid-off.” Suryanegara said on Sunday (28/3).

He also explained that apart from beggars, the officers detained some homeless people and people with mental illness who were roaming around on the streets. “In the last three months we detained 63 people in January, 43 people in February and 2 people in March from the streets. And the majority of them came from Munti Gunung village in Karangasem.” Suryanegara added.

Those people were spread out in several locations such as Nakula intersection in Seminyak, Imam Bonjol intersection in Denpasar, Patih Jelantik intersection, Mertanadi intersection and Benoa Square junction on Bypass Ngurah Rai. “The problem here is the government has never given any permanent solution for those people, so everytime we detain them and send them back to where they’re from they tend to come back to the streets.” Suryanegara concluded. He hopes that the government can take the responsibility to take care of the beggars by providing some assistance and training in order to have a sustainable job.