Seeing children safe and sound

The country has a few Acts in force aimed at protecting the rights of children. The Child Act of 2013 changes the legal definition of a child from being a person under the age of 14 to one under 18. The photograph of two rural teenage boys, undergoing 'punishment', which was published recently in the print media, smacks of sheer abhorrence. In every respect the scene smacks of the scale of depravity to which the country's rural society has lately sunk. The photo shows two bare-bodied boys, their legs tied by an iron chain to each other's, being beaten with sticks at high noon. They were forced to confess to their involvement with a theft case; and that, too, after a long ordeal.
Physically torturing both small and teenage boys on flimsy grounds, mostly on suspicion, is a common scenario. The punishments remain mostly limited to hitting with sticks or slapping on the spur of the moment. Devising in cold blood the style and duration of punishing a small boy or girl has become the norm only recently. In the present Bangladesh society, physical tortures of teenagers or, even, post-teenage youths by a section of people are part of an orgiastic fun. In almost all cases, the victims are innocent simpletons. Pumping their stomachs with air and seeing the organs balloon emerged as a cruel fun a few years ago. Those could have led to fatalities. Upon intervention of social activists and law enforcement agencies, the criminal activity could be reined in.
In most cases, the self-styled social guardians are found to be conducting the impromptu trials. Few of them or the common village folks have little idea that the open-air trials pronouncing a person 'guilty' or 'not guilty' go against the country's law. These informal and unlawful 'courts' have allegedly harassed many innocent persons in the name of punishment. On the other hand, many offenders were declared innocent and cleared of stigmas. The bitter truth is: the local influential people would mostly run these ersatz courts. As a result, to the justice-seeking individuals the so-called verdict of these 'courts' was a foregone conclusion. It was because the depositions of eye-witnesses were mostly skewed. A couple of decades ago, the omnipresent Salish (arbitration) sessions threatened to emerge as a parallel to the formal legal system. Thanks to their excesses done to the helpless rural women, rights activists stood up and demanded that the Salish system be dispensed with.
Due to their vulnerability, children turn out to be the easy victims of sham justice in the vast rural area. The so-called village-based legal process continues to be string-pulled by the rural influential quarters. Their verdicts in almost all the cases prove to be the final ones. The physical torture which the two teenage boys were made to bear with befell them without their least apprehension. Their oppressors caned them inhumanly without bothering to check on the facts. The boys were made to confess to their crime under duress. The two persons who had suspected the boys of having stolen their shallow tube-well's machine didn't even bother to interrogate the boys thoroughly. Assuming them to be the culprits, they swung into action --- forcing the boys to 'confess' to their crime. None can say for sure that the boys, in fact, didn't become perplexed and panicked.
In the present case, the boys' parents could contact the relevant authorities and seek justice. The government appears to be quite serious about protecting the interest of the country's children. It is reflected in the fundamental principles of the National Children Policy. Those include ensuring child rights in the light of the constitution of Bangladesh and elimination of all forms of child abuse and discrimination. Unlike many developing nations, Bangladesh children have been formally ensured a better future. But the bitter ground reality stands in its way.
shihabskr@ymail.com