Child Abuse: Where is the Ending ?

Child abuse in Bangladesh

In recent years, the rate of child abuse is growing in an alarming scale. Though children and women are always in a vulnerable state in our socio economic condition. But now-a-days the unstoppable outbreak of violence against children and women makes worried to the conscious citizen of the country. The abusive behaviour which children are facing comprises of harassing sexually, physically and emotionally even by their grown up family members or juvenile relatives. Some recent reports published in Bangladeshi dailies create panic to us. The incident of  raping of a child at Dinajpur in the most vicious way, abuse of only 8 months old female baby of a garments worker parent at Gazipur, rape of 3 years old baby girl at Chapai Nawabganj also showing the nasty scenario of violence against children in Bangladesh at this moment. 

In a close view of those incidents, we shockingly see that most of this inhuman treats are coming from the very close family members of the abused children or known persons of the children’s family. Some case study reveals that baby girls are sexually abused by their own grandfather, uncle, neighbour and in some cases, juvenile relatives are engaged in this type of sex crimes. In this situation, children are really helpless where the criminals are in their house. The most violent thing is, there is no age limit of those pedophiles and even victims have no age limit too, starting from 3 months old to 80 years old women are not safe from those manlike animals. In most cases of child rape, primarily they had been tempted for chocolates, biscuits, toys or such small stuff are used by the criminals to allure the baby. It is horrifying that when a child is abused, severe mental harm also causes to him/her, it may lead to the permanent mental disorder for victims. In some cases, victims are murdered by the criminals to avert future difficulties. 

Let's think over this heinous social problem. Is it the sign of only moral degradation of some humanlike animal or anything else? A study on the sex criminals tells that they even not think of their inhuman activities as a crime. They treat this thing not an offensive or very light crime as we had heard about the same notion once prevailed among the men of the medieval period.  They treated women as sex toys and no honour would be given that period. But in this eve of the 21st century, the same notion among some men is utterly shocking.

The causes of the recent outbreak of child abuse are many. The lacking of practicing proper investigation and judgment by law is one of the fatal causes here. Procrastination of judgment creates loop holes for the criminals to get escaped from the misdeeds. An incident in Barisal court may be stated here, At Ujirpur in the city a rape case of 3 years baby girls’ didn’t see any positive result where already 3 years have been passed but no significant outcome is visible. Even the speedy tribunal act did not carry any significant outcome resolving such important cases, from 2001 to 2015 this tribunal could not be able to provide verdict of the same cases within 180 days according to a report of One-stop Crisis Centre (OCC)

This type of procrastination loses the hope of victims family to get a proper judgment, in a result, they are compelled to settle the incident by local arbitration and politically influential people.  We didn’t see any exemplary punitive measures taken by law enforcing agencies for this type of crime in the past. In some cases, victim family tried to conceal the incident for avoiding future harassment and in fear of defamation in society. Involvement of  politically influential person is such crime also another cause of the outbreak. Lack of practicing religious faiths and family values are also responsible. 

According to the studies of psychiatrists and social scientists the negative outlook of society about victims,  the uncontrolled use of smart phone and availability of pornographic sites are some of the causes.  Another study driven by Shishu Odhikaar Forum reveals that this type of crimes are growing following geometric progression. In 2015 the cases of child abuse (rape, gang rape) reached 350% more than that of the cases happened in 2014, where the rate of killing after rape increased 40% in comparison to the previous year.  

Spreading proper guideline by family and sex education by educational institutes from the root level may lessen the abusive activities.  Maintaining religious practices and belief also can play a vital role here. Parents should be aware of the activities of their teenage children and their company. Some NGO’s and local conscious agencies are working to aware the vulnerable parents living in slums or densely populated areas of cities and towns. In most of the cases of child abuse, we see that criminals are taking the opportunity of the absence of the victim’s parent or guardians. So it is urgent to look after the baby girl of any ages even at the time of the absence of their parents. In this case aunts, grandmother, or any person reliable should be engaged looking after the female members to avoid such risk of abuse. 

Stop abusing children

The Government should more careful about the issue of child abuse following the convention of UN charter of the child to create a secured and safe environment for our children from being abused by adults. Prompt and instant punitive measures against the criminals may lessen the crime against our future generation. Existing tribunal for controlling oppression against women and children is enough to fight against those criminals but proper implementation of the verdict is very important here. We can not go through this disaster to our children anymore.  As a civilized nation, we have to create a secure environment and safe living for the children otherwise we to see a crippled generation where morality and values will be seen nowhere. It is time we changed our medieval outlook to the women and children. We should think that they are our future so we can not spoil our future if we dream for a peaceful environment in society, people from all level must be aware of the crimes which children are facing frequently by some miscreants. Only proper care and awareness can create a safer environment for our children.