Photo : Messenger
Today is Monday October 2, World Street Child Day 2023. The day is celebrated with the aim of rehabilitating street children and bringing them back to normal life by improving their quality of life.
The term street children refers to children for whom the streets (broadly including slums, wastelands, etc.) have become their natural habitat or source of livelihood and are not protected, guided and guided by a responsible adult.
Today's children are tomorrow's future. Mother's lap is their safe haven. But street children do not go to school. They sell various things or do other work on the streets. This is because their parents are unable to work or their income is very low, which is not enough to support their familyFather of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman dreamed of building a prosperous Bangladesh for children. The father of the nation guaranteed the rights of children in the constitution made in 1972. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the Bengali nation, enacted the Children's Act in 1974 to protect children's rights, 15 years before the United Nations declared the Charter of Children's Rights in 1989. Kalyankar took various steps for the education, protection and development of children in the newly independent country.
In July 2017, street children also got a place in the National Parliament. In the selected question and answer session, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina informed about various activities for these children. According to the information provided by the Prime Minister, street child rehabilitation program started in January 2016 under the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs. In this, children are involved in various activities including training, non-formal education, open school, entertainment. Apart from this, Bangladesh Shishu Academy is conducting various activities for underprivileged and street children in six Shishu Bikash Kendras operated from 2012 to May 2017 with the support of private organization 'Aparajeya Bangladesh'.
More than 100,000 children have been provided essential services through the 'Child Help Line-1098' under the Ministry of Social Welfare. From 2012 to 2016, financial assistance of Tk 15 crore 12 lakh has been given under various conditions including keeping urban children free from child marriage, prevention of physical abuse. Underprivileged street children are getting benefits at Sheikh Russell Child Training and Rehabilitation Center in 11 district towns of Ministry of Social Welfare. Establishment of the rights of underprivileged and street children, their physical, mental and moral development, academic education system, sustenance and self-reliance in future life is required to bring them back to the mainstream as a subsidiary institution of the government Section 89 of Bangladesh Children Act, 2013 mentions 16 categories of underprivileged children. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave clear instructions to the relevant ministries regarding the rehabilitation of street children at the inaugural function of 'World Child Rights Week, 2015'. He said, 'Why do our children roam the streets? Not even a child will roam the streets. Not even a child should live inhumanely like this.' For this purpose, he advised everyone, including public and private institutions, to work together for the rehabilitation of street children. Based on these guidelines, the Ministry of Women and Children conducted a survey in Dhaka North and South City
It is estimated that there are more than 600,000 street children living in Bangladesh and 75% of them live in the capital Dhaka. In a country ranked 138th on the Human Development Index, where half the population lives below the poverty line, these children represent the lowest of the social strata.
The survey report was prepared based on the data collected directly from 7 thousand 200 children aged 5-17 years in the hotspots of Dhaka and eight divisions of the country (places where the movement of street children is high). Although the total number of children living on the streets is not in the survey, UNICEF experts fear that the number may be more than 10 lakh.
Children living on the streets are defined as children who spend most of their time on the streets with or without their families to live or earn a living. According to survey data, most of these children are boys (82 percent) and most of them come to the streets due to poverty or in search of work. About 13 percent of children are separated from their families and 6 percent are orphans or do not know if their parents are alive.
About one in three of these children (more than 30 percent) lacks the most basic amenities of life, such as a bed to sleep in and a room with a door that can be locked for safety and comfort. They live and sleep in public or open places. About half of children sleep on the ground with only a jute bag, cardboard, piece of plastic or a thin blanket.
About 7 percent of children sleep completely alone and 17 percent of children seek security and comfort by sleeping together. One in three incidents of violence against children (30.4 percent) occurs at night while they are sleeping.
Children living on the streets are the most abused and harassed by pedestrians. Eight out of every 10 children surveyed reported being bullied or harassed by pedestriansAccording to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, everyone under the age of 18 is a child. According to that 40 percent of the total population of Bangladesh are children.
Children who are fatherless or motherless or both, whose mother is divorced or whose father is terminally ill, addicted to drugs or whose parents are unable to run the family, move out of the house and start living on the street, they are called street children. Most people in our country live below the poverty line. They cannot raise children properly. In their family, the lack continues. They fail to provide children with proper food and other basic rights.
It is these children who are deprived of life and get involved in various activities. These jobs include porters, hawkers, rickshaw pullers, florists, garbage collectors, hotel workers, weavers, drug carriers, bidi workers, welding factory workers, etc. Moreover, they are engaged in various risky activities. They started working from that morning and worked throughout the night. If you make a mistake, you have to be beaten by the owner. Sometimes he has to lose his job. These child laborers get 2/3 meals per day depending on the type of work. They get 20 to 50/60 taka at the end of the day or 500/600 taka at the end of the month, which is very insignificant compared to their labor and needs. If you make any claim to the owner, you will be fired. This is how their difficult life is going on. A large number of these street children are involved in various criminal activities.
Besides, street children are often used in procession meetings, various political showdowns or strike picketing. These children are participating in these party programs in exchange of money or a meal at Petpur. Apart from showdowns, picketing, vandalism or throwing cocktails are also being used for dangerous activities.
The number of street children in Bangladesh is increasing at an alarming rate. Most of them suffer from malnutrition, venereal disease and drug addiction. Thousands of street children have become addicted to drugs.
According to Bangladesh Child Rights Forum, 85% of street children consume drugs in some way. Among them, 19 percent are addicted to heroin, 44 percent to smoking, 28 percent to various tablets and 8 percent to injection.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 30 percent of drug-addicted children in Dhaka division are boys and 17 percent are girls. Drug-addicted boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 17 are at great physical and psychological risk.
Finally, I would like to say that Patha Shishu Day is celebrated every year in our country with the aim of protecting the path children of the country and establishing their rights. And street children are someone's children, relatives. Street children also have fair rights as humans are the best creatures created by Allah. In a free country these street children also have the right to grow up with equal opportunities. They also have the right to get their basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care properly. Let the National Street Children's Day be celebrated with the pledge to implement the rights of street children.
The writer is an author, columnist, political analyst, and founder chairman of the Jatiya Rogi Kallyan Society.
Messenger/Disha
