Violence against children shoots up

According to a report published by Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF), an average of 28 children are murdered and 49 raped in the country every month. Those are horrendous figures for a country where nearly half the population is made up of children! Indeed, going by data published by BSAF, the number of children raped and killed in the outgoing year was 28 and 33 percent higher than in 2016. What is also disturbing is that the law that was passed, the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017, has a provision in it that allows for marriage of underage children under "special circumstances". This provision, activists say, has actually increased violence against children.

Are we not opening the doors to the possibility of more sexual abuse of children when we have vagueness in the law that allows for "special circumstances" that allows for underage children to be married off after a particular incident of violence has been committed? The facts speak for themselves. With a rise of over seven percent in child rights violation in 2017 over 2016, we need less vagueness and more concrete actions.

Indeed, these sentiments have been echoed by the head of the National Human Rights Commission who has stated on record that we are yet to formulate rules that will govern the Children Act 2013 that would pave the way for setting up a child directorate. All this foot-dragging at the policymaking level is making it possible for more and more children to fall prey to predators in society and now that there are these Acts in place, it is the duty of lawmakers to make them an effective one.