Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque :
A series of sensational news reports during the last couple of weeks informed us about the brutal killings of children; a 13 year old boy being lynched , another child tottured and murdered and another brutally slain. A 10-year-old boy bludgeoned in the head with a crowbar after a neighbor accused him of stealing fish. Other news headlines read:
A 12-year-old allegedly tortured to death by a former boss for joining a competitor.
A 13-year-old tied to a pole and swatted to death by men who accused him of stealing a van – and captured the beating on a cellphone video.
These three grisly killings have occurred in Bangladesh, a country where poverty, lawlessness and rampant underage labor pose grave risks to children.
The children being victims of atrocities are poor. Many among them are involved in hazardous labour and subjected torture by their employers. Very recent happenings about ugliest manifestation of violence against child are mind boggling. Such unhappy incidences sparked public anger. The angry masses are rising to the occasion with the concerned authorities continuing to be indifferent to what has been happening here and there. Three gruesome murders of innocent children have been brought to public notice by news media. Rakib Hawlader was seriously tortured and then succumbed to serious injuries. ‘As air was being pumped into Rakib Hawlader’s body, around the evening of August 3, the boy pleaded to his tormentor to stop, or else he would die. But his pleas fell on deaf ears, as motor garage owner Omar Sharif, Sharif’s mother Beauty Begum and a man Mintu Mia, continued to pump air into his body. Although the 12-year-old was rescued and taken to the Khulna Medical College and Hospital, 250km southwest of the capital Dhaka. The incidents have shocked the nation where activists on Wednesday formed a human chain in the southern city of Khulna to protest the killing of the 12-year-old. Police said the boy, the son of a truck driver and identified only as Rakib, had recently quit his job at the Sahrif Motorcycle Garage and gone to work for a rival body shop. Sahrif’s owner and his brother allegedly caught Rakib on Monday evening as he walked past their shop and locked him inside, at one point pumping air into his rectum using a compressor hose.
Rakib’s belly swelled up and he started vomiting, authorities said. The suspected assailants brought the boy to a hospital, but he died of internal bleeding a few hours later. A mob chased down the suspects before they could leave the hospital and roughed them up before police took them and a woman into custody, where they await murder charges, police said. After Rakib was buried Tuesday, his mother, Lucky Begum, told reporters, “I want justice for my son. I want the three to hang.”
Then on Wednesday, this month(August) a madrassa student Robiul Awal was beaten to death, after he was suspected of stealing fish.
According to Child rights experts ‘the deterioration of law and order and the failure to prosecute murder cases of children are sowing the seeds of violence in the country.’ According to the Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF), a’ child rights group, at least 154 children were killed in the South Asian country between January and June, this year. In 2014, 292 children were murdered while the number was 180 in 2013.’
Children in Bangladesh also become victims of torture, rape, sexual assaults and other violations, according to BSAF.”We believe that the tendency of torture and killing will decrease in the future, if the accused persons in past incidents are tried under special crimes tribunals and [receive proper] punishment,” Emranul Huq Chowdhury, BSAF Chair, told Al Jazeera. Recently, authorities were forced to act after public outrage was sparked over the killing of a 13-year-old boy in Sylhet district on July 8.The lynching of Sheikh Mohammad Samiul Alam Rajon prompted protests and activists called for the guilty to be held accountable.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Meher Afroze Chumki, State Minister For Women And Children Affairs, said the government is working to “ensure justice” for the victims.”Drastic measures are necessary now to bring about a positive change in this regard.”
Violence against poor children also happened in the recent past. Most victims of violence involve in hazardous child labour As UNICEF reports: Bangladesh’s 421,000 child domestic workers (three-quarters are girls) face particular vulnerabilities because they work behind closed doors. Almost all child domestic workers work seven days a week and 90 per cent sleep at their employer’s home, meaning that they are completely dependent on their employers and often have restrictions on their mobility and freedom. About 60 per cent the report said some kind of abuse during their work, such as scolding or slapping. Levels of exploitation are also extremely high, as indicated by the fact that more than half receive no wage at all (they instead receive benefits such as accommodation, food and clothing – further reinforcing dependency on their employer). Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi children work in hazardous jobs. These are jobs that have been identified by the ILO to expose children to hazards including: physical, psychological or sexual abuse; excessive work hours; an unhealthy environment. For instance, 3,400 children work in brick/ stone breaking for the construction industry
Child Labour Monitoring (CLM) and occupational health and safety (OHS) are integrated interventions under the Projects of ILO combating hazardous works in child labour. OHS is the benchmark against which labour inspectors and community monitors implement CLM, and against which labour inspectors keep track of the children’s workplaces. Monitoring ensures that working children are not engaged in hazardous work, are working according to agreed upon time, and are attending classes regularly. Monitoring by labour inspectors in factories/ workplaces also ascertains that work conditions, processes, and materials used conform to the OHS guidelines for each sector. As a first step in developing the guidelines for regulating work environments in the 3 sectors, the OHSD. Occupational Health and Safety Assessments (OSHA) have been conducted in the work environments for the 3sectors. ILO-IPEC supported this activity by providing an expatriate OSH consultant who directly assisted in the Assessments. The results served as bases for the OHS Checklist and Monitoring Forms that are now being used by labour inspectors and community monitors as they keep track of the working children in both the factory or workplaces and their homes. Monitoring in the home assumes relevance in the fishing sector since children and parents undertake home-based crab/shrimp processing. The Checklist and Monitoring forms ensure that employers/parents conform to OHS guidelines
(Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque, Professor of Public Administration, Chittagong University)
