Standing by street children

Children have basic rights to education, balance diet, health and nutrition and recreation too. But unfortunately, many of our children are deprived of these basic human rights. Thousands of children in Dhaka city live in railway stations, bus terminals, outside the stadiums and other places. Losing their ties with families, these children are now deprived of a proper childhood. They are known as street children who are denied of all kinds of rights. According to a UNICEF study, the number of street children in Bangladesh is currently 979,728. At least 30.1 per cent of them live and sleep in public or open space without most basic amenities and 83.9 per cent of them are subject to abuse or harassment by pedestrians, according to the UNICEF study. As many as 71.8 per cent of them can neither read nor write while 11.3 per cent children are engaged in child labour, hazardous work or both.

If we want to ensure some basic human rights for our children, the government must increase the budget for child development. Different private organisations and the government should work collaboratively to build a supportive environment for children. Meanwhile, schools in our country need to adopt more holistic curricula and encourage children's participation in areas that are crucial to their development. The duties of humanitarian organisations lie in improving lives of all underprivileged children of our society so that they can become important human resources.

Abu Elias Linkon,

Banasree, Dhaka,

lightening_sparkle@yahoo.com