Child rights from human rights perspective

Taimur Alam Khondaker :
Children are the assets to every society. They are regarded as the future architect of a nation. Sometimes children are exposed to dirt, physical abuse, exploitation and other situational hazards. Bangladesh is a densely populated country with the population of 160 million. About half of the populations of Bangladesh are under the age of 18 and who are considered as children and more than 20 million of them are under the age of five. The children have basic rights to education, balance diet, health and nutrition, protection, participation, recreation, safe water, sanitation, and hygiene. Many of the children are deprived of those basic rights and abused sexually and physically. Street children are victims of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse from police, gangster and the general public.
Children in Bangladesh undergo different forms of violence and negligence in public and private establishments as well as in their families. In school, for example, teachers often mistreat their students. Even sometimes police torture many children in their custody. We are developing our country but still we have to wait to see the devastating dead bodies of children. Children in Bangladesh are vulnerable to being trafficked into bonded labour or brothels. Corporal punishment and degrading treatments are the norm because they are allowed by law and society. This type of violence has become the common picture in our country.
In a country where less than 10 per cent of children are registered at birth, it is difficult to track whether children’s rights are being protected. Those who are abused, trafficked or exploited are explicitly denied their rights to be safe from these practices under the convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The practice of child labor is prevalent with nearly 50 per cent of primary school students dropping out before they complete 5th grade. The total working child population between five and seventeen are estimated at 7.9 million. A total of 1.3 million children are estimated to be working 43 hours or more per week.
Education is a basic need and fundamental right of every child. That there is a constitutional guarantee for education under article 17 of the constitution of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh where it is stated as follows:  
(a) establishing a uniform, mass-oriented and universal system of education and extending free and compulsory education to all children to such stage as may be determined by law;
(b) relating education to the needs of society and producing properly trained and motivated citizens to serve those needs;
(c) removing illiteracy within such time as may be determined by law.
As per the said constitutional direction the Government has taken positive measure to the 100 per cent Children in Educational Institution. But disappointed on the following ground:-
(1) Poverty.
(2) Parentless and Proper Guadiana less Child.
(3) Unwilling Parents for Child Education due to low income.
(4) Child employment to support the families in financial cause.
(5) Lack of Government and State logistic support for hungry children including their day to day expedience.
The United Nations adopted an instrument under the title “convention on the Rights of the Child” to up-hold the right of child through out the world which was come into force on 02/9/1990 and Bangladesh has ratified the said convention, popularly which was known as CRC, 1989. In the said convention it was reorganized that every one (child) is entitled to all the rights and freedom set forth there in, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national on social origin, property, birth on other status.
The government as well as the state has failed to fulfill their constitutional committee to establish the right of the Child which is noted below:-
(1) That there is no sufficient number of Specialized Hospitals for treatment of child.
(2) Due to lack of modernized Maternity Centre through out the country (up to Union Level) and as such a Hand some portion of Babies and their mothers used to caused into death due to lack of proper treatment.
(3) That 100 per cent logistic support is to be given from the State to continue education for both girls and boys up to intermediate level.
(4) That a punishable law should be enacted against the parents who will make abstraction for continuation of education of their child.
(5) That the State should make arrangement of transport facilities, such as by providing cycle, motorcycle etc. for up and down faculties from educational institution.
(6) That the State should supply/furnish educational equipment to the child student etc.
(7) That the United Nation should create a fund of big amount under the name and style “International Poor Child Welfare Fund” to help the poor guardian of needy Child.
Though national and international instrument are there for the causes of Right of the child, but that rights are in black and white, practical implication are very poor and narrow. The commission formed under the National Human Right commission Act, 2009 is very much silent to establish the Right of Child.
The need to extend particular care to the child has been stated in the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924 and in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1959 and recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (in particular in articles 23 and 24), in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (in particular in article 10).
The children are helpless. Most of them are deprived from love and affection which are very much essential for their mental growth. As they are the future citizen, so every one including the State should be very much careful to upheld the Right of the child in family, national and international level.  

(The writer is Advocate, Appellate Division.)