Child Rights Week is celebrated in October and Prime Minister herself inaugurated celebration of the World Children Day and Children's Rights Week-2015 at Bangladesh Shishu Academy auditorium in the capital on October 11, 2015.
She made some commendable suggestions on the day and provided some significant directions in favour of disadvantaged children.
Among others, Prime Minister directed the ministries of women and children affairs and social welfare to take necessary steps to ensure food, shelter and education of street children. As Bangladesh has been able to achieve food security, she directed concerned authorities to ensure food for an estimated number of 3.4 million street children.
However, there is another group of children we often tend to forget is child domestic help. Unprotected by the laws, millions of these working children have neither a minimum wage, nor a limit on the workload their employers place on them. In worst-case scenarios, they are found tortured, sexually harassed or murdered.
However, the fact is that incidents of abuse and torture of domestic workers are all too common in Bangladesh but only a few of them are reported and meet public eyes.
Child domestic workers often come from extreme poor households and they are often denied basic rights and access to justice.
Recently, there were at least 2 instances where judiciary played a pivotal role in upholding justice for children.
High court did not allow bail petitions submitted in favour of ruling party lawmaker even. Rejecting his two bail petitions, the court ordered the Awamileague lawmaker to surrender before the trial court in Gaibandha by October 18.
In another incident, a Dhaka Court sent cricketer Shahadat Hossain to jail after he surrendered before it in a case filed for torturing his 11-year-old domestic help. The girl from Shatkhira was not fortunate though.
Memories of the most readers have possibly faced regarding the story of the poor girl employed in the house of Judicial Magistrate only to endure great physical and mental torture.
Even members of the household tried to obstruct course of justice as appeared in the newspapers.
Police were prevented from entering in the house until Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) of Satkhira and other high officials arrived in the scene.
Similar incident took place in the official residence of CJM in Sylhet. In the month of July, 2008; a child domestic help was brutally tortured allegedly by household members and she had to undergone through intensive treatment in Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital. Despite efforts from human rights defenders, law enforcing agencies were reluctant to press charge against a judicial officer.
If the accused were brought to book, the minor girl of Satkhira could have avoided similar fate.
There was an editorial published in The Daily Sun on August 22, 2015. it said, ‘How can a magistrate violate basic rights of a minor girl?
Apparently, he has miserably failed to establish justice in his personal life and thus lost moral authority of conducting judicial proceedings. Though he was stripped off judicial power soon after the incident, we want him to be brought to book for this offence’. Many weeks have passed since the editorial got published. Who will bell the cat now?
Oli Md. Abdullah Chowdhury is a human rights worker.
Reference:
1. Children must not pass miserable days on streets, PM to ministries, The Daily Sun, 11 October 2015
2. Torture on domestic workers, The Daily Sun, 22 August 2015.
3. Satkhira magistrate stripped off judicial power, The Daily Sun, 20 August 2015.
4. Plight of a child domestic worker, The Daily Star, June 21, 2008
BDST: 1823 HRS, OCT 14, 2015
