Alaul Alam :
It is obvious that the adolescences are expected as the future of a country. Not only their parents but also the society and nation expect much from them as they are the driving force of a country. It is assumed that with their enlightening power along with patriotic zeal in future the nation will be enriched.
But it is alarming that over the most recent years the activities of the teens are causing frustration amid the nation. They are found involved in various anti-social activities. Recently, one of the leading Bangla dailies have exposed that juvenile crimes have been galore amid the cities and towns in the country. Different sources estimate that around 200 teen gangs are active in Dhaka city.
But it must be horrible when the gangs across the country are estimated, who are involved in murdering, extorting, drug trading, mugging, eve-teasing and many more crimes exposing panic among the residents of the cities and towns. Not in the big cities only, with the advent of internet technology life style of the teens in the countryside has changed significantly. In many cases the youth in the countryside are found to be influenced with gang culture which not only leads them to the vulnerable future but also nips many parents’ dream in the bud which is really frustrating for a nation.
Different media sources have exposed that the unhealthy use of some virtual apps such as TikTok, Likee and Bigo helps to spread many social illnesses amid the youth. Recently, the law enforcers have found the involvement of the teen gangs in human trafficking, prostitution, sexual harassment, drug trafficking.A recent report illustrates that a single gang trafficked about 1,500 young girls to India for sex work.This scenario indicates that how frustrating the overall situation might be!
Not only women trafficking, many more devastating activities they are doing in the country but most of their ill activities remain unaddressed. Sometimes we see that law enforcing agencies arrest many gang members but as soon as they are released from the custody, again they start doing such mischiefs in their locality. Especially the city residents are bearing the most brunt of juvenile crimes.
It is apparent that these teens use virtual platforms and harass people manifolds, particularly the girls and women are the worst affected with their hands. We see that more often the law enforcers operate many drives against the teenage terrors but such drives in many cases fail to contain the ongoing surge of teens’ crimes.
Truly, this social malady has not developed in our country over night. There may be many more patrons with strong political background behind the scene cultivating the gang culture. In many cases, they may be the elected representatives or may hold vital political posts in the upazila or district level. The ring leaders or so called borovhais lure the youth in the world of drugs and crimes and promise to give them power and recognition. The teens in most cases being ill- motivated by the ring leaders break the family bondage and engage themselves in the dark world. The same time all the hopes of the parents are shattered. Though the members of the gangs may be punished, many cases the god father remains unaddressed.
It is worrying that the members of these gangs most of the time in a day stay drug-addict and roam around their locality and more often they are found involved in fighting in one another gangs over the issue of power spreading . They are completely void of civic sense along with values in life. Even their parents have hardly control over their sons, rather they may be physically assaulted by their addict sons. It seems that our social values have completely been paralyzed.
Experts say that parental and social degradation are worsening the situation. Breaking the large kinships into the nuclear ones and the parents not providing the quality time to their children may mislead the teens to the path of devastation. On top of that, watching aggressive movie and playing aggressive video games are making the children more prone to be aggressive. Research findings reveal that the children of the two categories are found mostly going astray. One is from affluent background who takes everything in the fashion and the other is from family hardship denied of basic opportunities in life.
To this end, we expect no alternatives to the law enforcers except driving strict action to the terrors along with their god fathers so that the gang culture is permanently rooted out from our society. As it has been emerging in the country as a social malady, there remains no compromise but to combat it with our concerted efforts. Again, the parents of the gang members cannot deny their responsibilities to perform to their sons. More importantly, it is a must to prevent juvenile crimes to save the nation’s future.
(Alaul Alam teaches at Prime University. He is also research scholar at the IBS
Email: [email protected])
