Jharna, 10, works 16 hours at a stretch as a domestic help in Dhanmondi. Even after working for such long hours, she was never appreciated by her masters, rather she was burned on her fingers, back, and leg with a hot iron rod.

Mustaqin, working in the house of a doctor couple in the Shahbag area of the city as a domestic help, subjected to beating and burning that almost crippled him, caught public attention through media reports. We can only wonder what crime a young child working as a domestic help could commit that would cause a cultured(!), educated, and affluent family to gang up and unleash the worst kind of barbarism on him.

Sometimes it so happens that such young domestic helps, just on suspicion of taking away some money left on the table or small gold ornaments kept in open drawers, are subjected to such tortures to elicit a confession. In almost all cases they are honest and try to earn the confidence, love, and affection of their masters through their service. Think of the case when, under normal circumstances, a child coming from an affluent family whose material needs have been met would find it difficult to live with so much temptation and still not yield to it.

The staggering number of children, about 30 million under the age of six, remaining without proper food and schooling, point to a grim future for the country. Although the number of children initially enrolled in primary schools ranges up to 75 percent, almost 60 percent of them drop out, mainly due to poverty. Only 40 percent can somehow cross the primary stage of schooling. The number of street children in the country eking out a miserable existence without food, nutrition and shelter, as revealed in a report by UNICEF, is 18 lakhs. There are about 1 lakh fifty thousand children working as domestic helps in Dhaka alone.

While other countries in the world talk about the need to invest in their youth, much of Bangladesh has converted its youth into a pernicious capital investment: too many children are working in different fields, and most dreadful jobs. In a host of small scale factories and work houses, it is children who dip matchsticks into phosphorous, mix the gunpowder for fire crackers, roll the bidis, and weave the carpets.

Despite the fact that child labourers have been withdrawn from the garments sector following international pressure, there are still thousands of children now in the country eking out a living under oppressive situations in other vocations. These are the children who are working 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, working as hotel boys or coolies in bus and railway stations, etc. far outnumbers those 10,000 child workers just withdrawn from the garments factories.

Haroon, a boy or 12 who works as a hotel boy in the busy Mojijheel area of the city, had high hopes in life. He wanted to study and help his family through meaningful employment, but with the death of his father in a road accident all his hopes have been dashed. He now works on a monthly pay of Tk 400 with free food and lodging. His mother, who works as a maid in a house in Dhanmondi, could not avoid exploitation by the traffickers. Most disquieting, despite sanctimonious pronouncements by the government and in some cases passing tougher laws, the child sex industry is booming in the country. Girls born of poor parents are being put into this trade by some human predators inside the country, who are never caught and punished because of their cosy nexus with law enforcers and political masters.

Grim accounts of poor girls under 14 being taken away from around the country and sold into prostitution are pouring in. They have to sell their bodies in different areas of Dhaka, Narayanganj, Chittagong, and Khulna, often unnoticed by the administration and society at large because they were born poor. In spite of the fact that the country has strict laws to stop such repression and abuse, we have hardly been able to ensure protection to these teenagers from exploitation or to arrest this trend of being trapped in these abominable trades.

The condition of the children lacking support of family or parents beggars description. They wander homeless in the streets of big cities like Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna, often surviving by thieving or begging in absence of any means of living. They die by the thousands every day of preventable diseases like Malaria, T.B., diarrhea, etc. Whether society and the administration has cared to see or not, the fact remains that they are the most disadvantaged children in the country. If the present trend that reflects lack of serious monitoring and funding continues, many of these youngsters will die of illness or malnutrition in the long run.

The plight of these homeless children bereft of any educational support and family backing is as sad and shocking as could be possible. The city's garbage dumps are home to many of them. These rubbish pickers spend their days sifting through mountains of stinking refuse, looking for recyclable objects, such as glass, paper, polythene, cardboard, empty cans of foods, metal, cloth, bones, and food remnants. Doubtless, children make the best scavengers, they can scurry more easily among the piles of garbage. But how can society and the administration face such a cruel fact that God's best creation, 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 or in cardboard shanties?

These unfortunate children, often the product of broken homes, sleep wherever they can find a space. "One can hardly deny this fact that society hardly tries to think about these unfortunate kids till before the moment they are beside their car begging for food or asking to give them some form of employment, maybe an hours' job as a coolie," observes one social scientist in the city. True to every sense of the term, most of our children live in a state of violence, persecution, rejection, and forced labour. In this sad setting, the only escape for many is drugs and other anti-social activities.

Although the law in the country prohibits employment of children under 14, it is seldom enforced. With the enactment of stricter laws that would put an end to child abuse, repression and trafficking, one can only envision a happy and prosperous future for the country. Because if children were happy, educated, and did not suffer from diseases and malnutrition, there would be no terrorism in the country. Undeniably true, other than any other factor contributing to the proliferation of child labour, one can say that it flourishes, even though there is a high level of adult employment, because it is the cheapest labour available.

Statistics revealed that if the world leaders could urge people in their countries to spend only pennies per child, that additional annual expenditures of $2.5 billion a year worldwide could prevent 50 million deaths, mostly children in this decade. That amount is equivalent to what world's military establishments, taken together, shell out each day.

There is some reason for optimism. Almost two thirds of the yearly deaths in children caused by diarrhea and dehydration are caused by contaminated food and water. All these can be treated or prevented at low cost. In case of diarrheal disease, which accounts for 30 percent of deaths, the life-saver is a small packet containing a dry mixture of salt, sugar and potassium, that, when mixed with water, is used in oral dehydration therapy. If administered in time, ORT, which costs Tk 3 to 4 per packet, stops diarrhea and restores vital electrolytes before the affected child goes into fatal shock.

Despite the success we have attained in immunisation, because of the commitment of the concerned agencies and use of radio and television for advertising campaign, the children of the country suffer inexorably. Presumably, penicillin and vaccines are no antidote to the abuse, neglect and denial of opportunity to these unfortunate teeming millions who continue to lead a life of misery, squalor, and exploitation because they were born poor. The war to be waged in our country is to force the affluent section of society to pay more attention to the needs of these neglected youngsters having no parents, no families, and no support. Unless we can affirm the right of children to a life free from exploitation, neglect, and abuse, guaranteeing them access to food, health care, and education, and ensuring protection to youngsters involving juvenile justice, our commitment to democracy and national prosperity will be a distant dream of the past.

Md. Asadullah Khan is a former teacher of physics and Controller of Examinations, BUET.