Street people - To give or not to give, a moral question or a legal question

Lost in the many thoughts that were crisscrossing my idle mind as I sat in the torment of the scourging humidity of a 26 degree centigrade day in Kampala, the last thing I wanted was to be provoked by anything. I was fidgeting to get my car air-conditioner on having already raised up all the windows of my car to keep away the heat, noise, fumes from the four lane-jammed cars – like mine, mostly Japanese, hence with a longer life on the road than the other Germany or so ones. In my subconscious now, as an afterthought, I realize that I drew the windows up to keep the street people off as well! In the midst of my irritation and discomfort, I noticed a darkening of my window, a shadow that I very much could guess the origin, but guiltily ignored the sign although not for long,it was immediately followed by an initially soft tapping and then louder and aggressive drumming of my window. A little girl of about 10 years carrying – I imagined her sibling of about 7 months was begging for money. Since my window was up, I couldn’t exactly hear what she was saying, although I could deduce what she meant from the open hand to mouth gesture of eating food. She did this several times while I watched in a mixture of embarrassment and guilt. A rosary hung on the rare view mirror at the front of my car, and by my side was a public van – ‘Matatu’ fully occupied, the passengers seemed to all gaze at me and the little scene that the girl had created. My eyes darted from the matatu people, to the rosary in my car, and to the girl and the baby. I thought for a while; Is it legal to give this girl money? How much will be enough? If I give her this money will it help her get off the street? How much can the money relieve? What are the people in the Matatu thinking about me? Have they seen the sign that I proclaim to be a Christian? What does my Christian teaching tell me about this situation? I prayed that the lights would change and I would escape from this discomforting moment but unfortunately for me, the trial was going to be prolonged. For some reason, the traffic was being controlled by the traffic police and not the lights and therefore, it was at their discretion to release different lanes of vehicles to move as they deemed fit. I was stuck for another couple of minutes, on top of the 5 that had already been excruciating. I drew down my window and handed over 1000 shillings (close to ½ a dollar) that had caused me to unravel my whole bag and wallet to find.Luckily I had found two coins of 500 shillings each,which I had handed over to the grim-faced girl. She instantaneously varnished and my torment had also ended but not before she scorned the supposedly little money I had given her. I continued to scan my vicinity, with the interest of finding out where she was headed to, luckily I caught a last glimpse of the girl walking towards an older women seated seemingly comfortably by the shade of a bus stand – I suspect she was her mother . At about that moment, I had to drive off. The experience left me uncomfortable for days, while I temporarily dodged driving by that route, I remained disturbed by the awkward situation and with the same questions but even more this time; Isn’t this child labour? But it is definitely child abuse? Am I not encouraging dependency and continued existence of street children? Is it dignifying to beg? Of course not, but what does this girl and her mother think? Who will solve this problem? Maybe I should do something and stop feeling like the victim?