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The Ghana National Association of the Deaf (GNAD), has asked the public to refuse alms to deaf persons begging but direct such charities into assisting them gain employable skills. �We write to appeal to the�public to desist from giving money to deaf people begging but rather invest in them,� the association said in a statement signed by its National President, Mr Emmanuel Sackey, and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday. �Benevolent institutions or individuals can also volunteer to sponsor the deaf through vocational training of their own choice or go through the formal education for a better future,� the statement added. According to GNAD its findings showed that deaf beggars had taken the art of begging for alms as a profession and thereby creating a syndicate around the venture, described as a social problem, and are not ready to stop. �We have learnt that foreigners from neighbouring countries like Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast and Liberia are also profiting and are usually housed in rented homes and hotels paid by their masters or employers base on their daily earnings,� it said. The association said it is shocking to discover that deaf beggars who are mostly women serve as sexual partners to their masters at Osu in Accra, where they are housed in a hotel. �It is in this direction that GNAD requests the help of the Ghana Police Service to intervene by arresting the perpetrators and collaborating with GNAD to help in prosecuting them.� �We equally solicit the help of the metropolitan assemblies to assist in alerting the police service of deaf beggars as and when the need arises,� the statement said. It urged institutions and banks to stop giving charity to the deaf beggars, saying: �We believe that if their activities are genuine they will not move from one bank to another with fictitious envelopes claiming to have finished one vocation or the other and yet ask for support.�