Do you know what is poverty? Is it hungry face? Is it empty stomach? Is it crying baby for milk? Is it frail body? Isn't it shameful that our prosperity can not eliminate poverty? See this video:
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Friday, June 9, 2006
Child Trafficking Review in 2004
Somini Sengupta’s article on Child Traffickers Prey on Bangladesh was published in the New York Times on April 29, 2002. Her article surfaced a 10 year old boy Nuru Mia’s story. Nuru played as a camel jockey in the Dubai desert. His image shows the suffering of children as camel jockeys who are trafficked by criminals and their underworld networks and exploited by their rich patrons in the Middle East. BBC News featured story of some of these children repatriation to Bangladesh and the vivid image of their painful suffering. According to United Nations Children’s Funds (Unicef), about 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. Thousands of boys as young as five years are trafficked from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan to the United Arab Emirates each year to work as camel jockeys
The economy of child trafficking goes beyond any supply and demand analysis or economic gains for parents. Case study of a poor ten year old girl from a Bangladesh village represents the horror of sexual exploitation. She is one of the 13,000 children who were trafficked out of Bangladesh in the last five years. Earlier this year in a seminar, it was referred that up to 20,000 women and children are smuggled out of Bangladesh annually (Daily Star, January 21, 2004). We share a global concern of child trafficking, as its extent and portrait are found to be very elusive. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report (2003) on human trafficking problem by countries is a comprehensive document for public awareness.
Tragically, children have become an easy prey of an emerging exploitative immigration practice. Thousands of children are sold and smuggled out of Bangladesh for physical and sexual exploitation in the recent years. We don’t know their names or addresses, they are simply lost in numbers, in unofficial estimates, or sometimes a few of them are caught in law enforcement actions. Child trafficking has attracted immaculate news headlines and further research interests. It is not incidental in Bangladesh context; its extent reflects absence of a structured social protection response for children, deterioration of social cohesiveness along with poor enforcement of criminal justice system. Child trafficking is a breach of human rights and children’s rights that deserves national attention for preventive and rehabilitative strategies. We need to look at child welfare advocacy resources that are active in Bangladesh for child protection.
Every child smuggled out of the country is simply one more number to the estimated calculation of thousands of children. Real pictures of their suffering, painful living and deprivation are mostly untold, unknown and tragically unnoticed. Children are stolen, their innocence is lost, their dreams are shattered, and more over, they are severely betrayed by our ambivalence and lack of social protection. They live and survive in a disgraceful life. Their smugglers and traders are stone hearted criminals who have allured them and their families. These young children even don’t know what their fault is. Their scars remain fresh, their tears don’t dry up, and our words can hardly describe their suffering.
Our ambivalence and indifference about child trafficking are very painful. It is a fundamental human rights challenge and the worst form of oppression of our time. We urge you to come forward to combat child trafficking. It could be a letter writing campaign and/or fund raising effort for helping children to repatriate and rehabilitate. We need your ideas and thoughts, as they are powerful for meaningful action. Our empathy should not evaporate with a silent sigh. All we have to do is to: “break the heart of stone”, and there is “No need to waste the foolish tear, or heave the windy sigh” as Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) portrayed a century ago. Read more!
The economy of child trafficking goes beyond any supply and demand analysis or economic gains for parents. Case study of a poor ten year old girl from a Bangladesh village represents the horror of sexual exploitation. She is one of the 13,000 children who were trafficked out of Bangladesh in the last five years. Earlier this year in a seminar, it was referred that up to 20,000 women and children are smuggled out of Bangladesh annually (Daily Star, January 21, 2004). We share a global concern of child trafficking, as its extent and portrait are found to be very elusive. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report (2003) on human trafficking problem by countries is a comprehensive document for public awareness.
Tragically, children have become an easy prey of an emerging exploitative immigration practice. Thousands of children are sold and smuggled out of Bangladesh for physical and sexual exploitation in the recent years. We don’t know their names or addresses, they are simply lost in numbers, in unofficial estimates, or sometimes a few of them are caught in law enforcement actions. Child trafficking has attracted immaculate news headlines and further research interests. It is not incidental in Bangladesh context; its extent reflects absence of a structured social protection response for children, deterioration of social cohesiveness along with poor enforcement of criminal justice system. Child trafficking is a breach of human rights and children’s rights that deserves national attention for preventive and rehabilitative strategies. We need to look at child welfare advocacy resources that are active in Bangladesh for child protection.
Every child smuggled out of the country is simply one more number to the estimated calculation of thousands of children. Real pictures of their suffering, painful living and deprivation are mostly untold, unknown and tragically unnoticed. Children are stolen, their innocence is lost, their dreams are shattered, and more over, they are severely betrayed by our ambivalence and lack of social protection. They live and survive in a disgraceful life. Their smugglers and traders are stone hearted criminals who have allured them and their families. These young children even don’t know what their fault is. Their scars remain fresh, their tears don’t dry up, and our words can hardly describe their suffering.
Our ambivalence and indifference about child trafficking are very painful. It is a fundamental human rights challenge and the worst form of oppression of our time. We urge you to come forward to combat child trafficking. It could be a letter writing campaign and/or fund raising effort for helping children to repatriate and rehabilitate. We need your ideas and thoughts, as they are powerful for meaningful action. Our empathy should not evaporate with a silent sigh. All we have to do is to: “break the heart of stone”, and there is “No need to waste the foolish tear, or heave the windy sigh” as Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) portrayed a century ago. Read more!
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