How long will the children suffer neglect and apathy?
Grim accounts of brutality on two minor street boys stealing fruit from the seller's shop in the city market that ultimately led to their death have touched the cord of the citizenry. Frozen with hunger and wandering aimlessly in the market area, an eight year-old street boy's eyes were drawn to some red apples in the fruit seller's shop which perhaps he has never tasted before. He could not resist himself and from picking one and started running to safety. But the fruit seller could not afford the loss, chased the boy and ultimately caught him and started beating him up. At one stage he hit the boy's head with a brick. Profusely bleeding, the boy fell unconscious. This time the fruit seller ran to safety and some passers by took the boy to a hospital where the doctor declared him dead.
Hardly the citizenry could forget such a grisly murder of a young boy for stealing an apple, they heard with shock and pain in just within a month one more horrific story of a ten year old boy meeting such a fatal end for stealing some dates from a fruit shop in the capital. In this case some crazy passers by joined the fruit seller and gave the boy such a fatal thrashing that he succumbed to his wounds after being shifted to hospital.
All these horrific incidents happen in a country at a time when we talk glibly about our children, the future of the country, in seminars and meetings and make lofty promises to ensure their rights in the society. Undeniably true, children hailing from the poorest section of the society have forgotten the very day they were born that this country with all its resources belongs to them. Starkly true, under normal situation, even an educated and sensibly person, if he is hungry for a day, would find it difficult not to yield to such temptation around him. Yet, if a hungry street boy or a domestic help shows such misdemeanor, he is made to pay for it, first undergoing physical abuses and in extreme cases with his life.
While other countries talk about the need to invest in their youth, much of Bangladesh has converted its youth force into a pernicious capital investment : too many children are doing some most dreadful jobs. In a host of factories and workhouses till this day even after promulgation of the 'Repression against Women and Children Act" in early 1995, employing the tender aged boys and girls in hazardous jobs still continues. In a host of such work places, it is children who dip the matchsticks into phosphorous, mix the gunpowder for fire crackers and roll 'bidis' and cigars labour and work the metal stamping machines.
There are still thousands of children now in the country eking out a living under oppressive situations in other vocations like carpet making to tannery to transport sector to loaders in bus stops, launch ghat and railway stations either to support themselves or their families. The number of children doing such odd jobs as splitting stones for the construction workers or picking trash from the streets or packing groceries or working as hotel boys outnumber those withdrawn from the garments sector.
Hashem, a 12 year old boy hailing from Nilphamari had high hopes in life. He read up to class four in a primary school in his area. Even his day labourer father wanted to educate him to a certain level within his means. But with the death of his father in a road accident, all his hopes dashed to ground. Finding no meaningful job to stay alive in their native village, his mother along with her two other kids came to Dhaka. Hashem now works in a hotel in the Dhaka stadium market on a monthly pay of Tk. 900 with free food and lodging. He now supports his mother and two other siblings.
Grim accounts of poor girls under 18 being taken away by some women's syndicate dealing in sex trade from impoverished families in rural areas with enticement of providing jobs with handsome salaries and then selling them to hotels and fake guest houses are pouring in. For such girls across the country, fear is a constant companion and rape is a stranger they have to confront at every corner, on any road, even in a public place, at any hour. Report carried by a Bangla daily in the recent past (Janakantha August 9) indicated that a school girl at Gaibandha town was raped by a 'fake pir' in the area and critically injured she is now under treatment in the sadar hospital.
Four women traffickers arrested in the recent past from Mohammadpur area belonging to a women's syndicate confessed to the police that they had rented some flats in different areas of the city and ran this dastardly business. The victims, after they were recovered, narrated the harrowing tales of their capture, enticement and engagement in sex trade.
The condition of the children lacking support of the family or parents beggars description. They wander in the streets of big cities like Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna often surviving by begging, ferrying household consumer goods, and most shockingly peddling drugs these days, a recent thriving business operated by some drug lords keeping themselves away from public eyes. To our utter dismay, these unpretentious minor boys, without food and job were lured to this clandestine drug business with offer of big money.
. Although articles 17, 18 and 19 of the Constitution of the Republic guarantee equal opportunities in education, social and economic benefits for all segments of the society, the reality is a shocking episode of apathy, neglect and discrimination. The city's garbage dumps are home to many of them. These rubbish pickers spend their days sifting through the mountains of smelly refuse, looking for recyclable objects. True, children make the best scavengers, they can scurry more easily among piles of garbages. But how can the administration and the society face the cruel fact that God'd best creation, only because they were born poor or with no father or mother to support them in the most formative years of their lives, are destined to end up in garbage dumps and cardboard shanties ?
Society or the affluent section hardly tries to think about these unfortunate kids till before the moment they are beside their cars at the road intersection and asking them to buy some flowers or popcorns from them. True most of our poor children live in a state of violence, persecution and rejection and forced labour. In this sad setting the only escape for many is drugs and other anti-social activities. A survey made by the social scientists in recent times suggest that most of the young offenders these days are found to hail from extremely poor families, raised in streets or slums without proper care or guidance from parents. A big number of offenders are also from the middle and upper classes, perhaps the products of broken homes.
Psychologists are concerned about the growing nature of cruelty among juveniles as is evident from recent incidents of some killings in the country. They do not show any repentance even after committing violent crimes and sometimes even kill the victim to hide evidence of their crime.
The state must intervene in such a critical period of national life. Like the former Indian President A.P.J Abdul Kalam, who visited 21 states in the first year of his presidency and met about two lakh school students every year starting from slum schools to public schools to illuminate their mind, our next elected Prime Minister, next President and M Ps might do something worthwhile to steer the nation clear of the calamity that has befallen it.
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