The disabled children forced to beg

SALAM grew up being told her disability was a divine punishment.

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Then she found herself exploited for money on the streets of the Ethiopian capital.“One day, I only brought him back a small amount, and he kicked me and beat me violently,” Salam recalled to AFP.

Now in her twenties, she asked to be identified by a fake name, as did other victims interviewed by AFP.

Salam is originally from a rural area in Amhara, an Ethiopian region where disability is perceived as a curse.

“My parents gave me to a man they did not know when I was eight years old, saying he would let me study in Addis Ababa,” she said.

Instead, Salam, who suffers from a spinal deformity, was made to beg at Merkato, the city's famous open-air market.

Without a wheelchair, she moved by crawling on the ground with pieces of rubber tyre on her knees and flip-flops on her hands. Her days began at dawn and lasted 15 hours, regardless of the weather, and even if she was sick.