A disabled woman caused commotion in Thika town on Friday when she confronted a young girl who was pretending to be disabled and begging for money next to Thika Police Station.
The woman claimed that the young girl had been placed on Kenyatta Avenue by known people who run a cartel of trafficking disabled people from Tanzania and using them to beg money on the streets of Thika Town.
According to the woman, the leader of this group is from Ruiru and that he earns millions from this illegal act but giving the beggars peanuts in return.
Upon further scrutiny, the girl was discovered not to be disabled. She had just folded her legs to fool the public.
The woman said that such people were giving the government a bad name since all those Kenyans living with disabilities were registered and issued with identification documents, including children.
She claimed that they all received government assistance which she had used to educate her children. She displayed her identification document in a bid to authenticate her story.
She claimed that these Tanzanians had made it so hard for genuine cases to get assistance.
“Anytime we seek help we are denied because the cartels take almost all the money with them leaving the disabled in poverty. We need to curb such cases,” she said.
The girl is now being interrogated by Thika police officers and the area children’s officer Mrs Rebecca Kariuki.