Now this isn't exactly a personal horror story which is what I made this sub for, but an evil around us and I wanted to let people know about this and this feels like a decent enough place to do so.
This post deals with sensitive topics so -content warning- folks.
In the city Gujarat close to my city is a shrine, a shrine where people since the 1800s have come to pray when they fail to have kids. But in what sounds like a German fairy tale, the cost is that you then give the shrine your first born. Now I wouldn't speculate what this meant in the past but that tradition under the wraps continues to this day.
If you are barren and you pray at the shrine, the Saint will grant you a child but it could look like a mouse, you have to donate that child to the shrine or all your future children will look like mice too. This is a claim made at the Gujarat shrine.
Pakistan has a million issues and what is a heart wrenching one for me are the beggar gangs. To briefly explain this, children are kidnapped throughout the country, Karachi especially is sooo terrible at this. 3000 kids went missing in one city in a single year which I don't think is the highest year. Kids are then traded across gangs across cities so they aren't found. Now why kids? And what do they do to said kids?
Well the purpose of these gangs is to create an army of beggers they own and control, beggers who can bring in more donations. These children are moved across shrines but to make them obedient, to make them docile, unrecongnizable and more pitiable... they are mutilated. Limbs cut off, eyes gouged out. The intention is for the child to attract sympathy and money. And one hour at a shrine will show you it works.
Kids already disabled are also prime kidnapping targets.
Shrines attract desperate people, people in emotionally vulnerable states, people willing to donate more than not.
Now why did I bring up Gujarat specifically? Well there lies one of the cruelest deformation that I could imagine. I've seem beggers without a limbs or eyes, moving around in 50 degree heat with a rag on their body lying on a broken wooden board bleeding. Every time I leave my house I come to tears at the state of the begging culture of this nation.
Yet amongst them all lie the 'chooay' or mice of Pakistan. Kids whose heads are wrapped in metallic bands that destroy their minds. People who have in all effect little to no sanity. They are also very regularly victim to sexual assault as they can't exactly complain.
This theory was established and researched by one of Pakistan's top scientists, who was then banned from talking about the issue following media exposure years ago.
(Another issue is molvis raping kids. How under threat women are; every woman I know has told me 5 personal horror stories. There's sexual assault EVERYWHERE.)
Some think it is a mix between Down's syndrome and mongoloid children. With Pakistan's inbreeding tendencies. My mother loves cousin marriages and is obsessed with the idea. The educated part of the current generation is rebelling against this but a vast majority love inbreeding. Many are offended if you say a word against it. But that could be possible.
Legally you cannot give a child to the shrine and so the tradition is in ways limited. Yet kids are given away or taken away. Whether by shrines or begging gangs who deploy them outside those shrines (and everywhere else too).
So these kids are kidnapped, mutilated, raped and traded. Thrown around as beggers, their money all then collected. Many hooked on cheap drugs that kill them. They are not just victims of poverty. They are victims of the worst offences you could imagine.
Women are raped and impregnated in order to maximise ‘profit’ in these gangs. Children and seniors deliberately have their limbs abnormally twisted or removed, leaving them crippled. They lay a persons leg on a train track and a train chops off their leg.
Beggars are then taught begging tactics such as where and how to beg effectively to maximise donations.
On average, a child domestic worker makes an estimated Rs. 500-1500 (£2-£16) per month. Yes people employ children.
Whereas beggars can make between Rs. 100 and 10,000 (46p-£45) daily.
Thus, begging is more profitable than being a nanny, cook, driver or gardener in Pakistan.
So. I don't know if the rat people are victims of microcephaly or torture. And I don't care, for they are victims in many many more ways too.
Some additional info:
I live in the middle east now and Pakistani's love moving here and have bought this beggar industry here too.
To add to that faking or exaggerating physical or mental disabilities, injuries, diseases, or deformities to elicit pity and donations from the public is common is begging gangs. Some beggars may even mutilate or injure themselves or others to create a more convincing appearance is also an issue here.
Claiming to be victims of natural disasters, wars, conflicts etc and asking for help or relief from the public. Some beggars also use fake documents, photos, or stories to support their claims. Because yes recently beggars started moving around with documents, they'd start by saying, I am not a begger I need money for this medical bill or I got evicted etc.
Personally I'd like to change the fact that every memes comment section is just serious conversation. Where's the whimsy, where's the tomfoolery folks