Violence against younger people
Bangladesh is one of the earliest signatories of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the government adopted a draft policy for child domestic help providing basic rights to domestic workers as guaranteed under the labour law. Article 32 of the CRC clearly speaks about the protection of the children from any kind of work that is harmful for their physical and mental health. Another international binding for Bangladesh is the ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor which has been ratified in 2001.
However, another horrendous story of torturing the adolescent girl shocked many readers as it appeared in the Prothom Alo on February 21, 2016. Although Purnima has only been 12 years old, she had to experience severe punishment. She was even set alight by her employer and then left in a warehouse without any medical treatment. In an editorial in The Daily Star on 22 February 2016; the incident was rightly condemned. Husband corroborated his wife in torturing the poor girl and it was described in the editorial as 'the couple who did this to her worked in collusion to carry on such torture on a child is all the more shocking'. Child poverty is still prevalent in the country and mere hope that children will at least be fed three square meals force parents to send offspring to work in households.
It is true that many similar horrific torture incidents of child domestic workers got published in newspapers. There were many more which did not come out. I wrote about another horrific account of child domestic help in The Daily Star (November 10, 2015) that took place in the house of a judicial magistrate in Satkhira. Despite having reported in newspapers, perpetrators hardly get punished and more number of child domestic workers are becoming victim of neglect and abuse.
Protection of children in general at stake. No sooner had the nation recovered from the tragic murder of 4 children in Habiganj, the news story of 12-year-old Purnima appeared in the leading newspaper. The younger child domestic workers are, the more vulnerable they become to the violence inflicted by their employers. It is equally true for younger children as they are increasingly becoming victim of familial or community conflict. Incident of Habiganj gives us a sad reminder of this trend.
An accused in the Habiganj four-kid murder case was allegedly killed in a "gunfight" with the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). As the victim happens to be an important witness in this horrific murder case, it might provide an impression that such killing is a way of circumventing the due legal process. There is no alternative to bringing killers of children to book.
To recapitulate, perpetrators must be brought to book to prevent similar incident in the future. At the same time, community-based child protection system must be developed to ensure safety of younger people. Otherwise, sufferings of young people would know no bounds.
The writer is a human rights worker.
Comments