Children not getting proper attention, care: Minister
Amra Kuri celebrates 26th founding anniv
Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman expressed dismay on Tuesday over the fact that children are not being properly brought up due to lack of proper attention and care by guardians.
He said this while attending a programme as the chief guest marking the 26th founding anniversary of Amra Kuri;, a national organisation for juvenile at Jatiya Sangeet O Nrityakala Kendra Auditorium of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA). A discussion meeting together with honouring a number of cultural media and intellectual personalities, prize giving ceremony and cultural show was organised as part of the programme.
Mostafizur further said, Drugs destroy both the youth and the children. It is a terrible contagion. If were unable to convince our children about its corrosive effects, their future will be ruined. The guardians are also forcing their children into doing things that retard their natural mental growth.
Pointing to the governments regular monitoring over the students condition, the minister said, We are committed to protecting our students from physical torture by teachers. However, guardians also often put undue pressure on their children for better results that amounts to torture.
Special guest Amanullah Khan, chairman of United News of Bangladesh (UNB) and chief adviser, Amra Kuri, in his address said, We should encourage the children to instill in them good habits at an impressionable age that will last life long.
Sharing a Swedish experience, he added, Sweden is a developed and affluent country where their schoolteachers teach their students to switch off their lights to save the consumption of power from very childhood. On the contrary, we have very limited resources and therefore if we want to use our limited resources wisely, we should teach our children not to waste resources unnecessarily. We should prepare our children from their childhood to build a green world without which it would be impossible to ensure sustainable development.
Khan further pointed out in addition to staging cultural events for the children, the organisation has been conducting awareness and educational programmes for them. Among the issues discussed were sex and HIV/AIDS which were at the time a taboo, but later included in school textbooks, smoking and drug addiction, relationship between the children and mothers, inclusion of the marginalised children into the mainstream and making friends with them, protection from natural disasters, building life skills, etc.
The Amra Kuri chief adviser who was involved with the organisation since its inception mentioned, We have worked on the rights of children and observed the childrens day. There are numerous laws in our country to protect their rights and interests. T
he Women and Children Repression Prevention Act 2000 (amended 2013) is one of them. This groundbreaking act provides for setting up tribunal and speedy trial court for women only, but has not been done so in case of children who are more vulnerable and deserve speedy justice all the more.
Talking on the Child Marriage Restraint Act, Khan said child marriage has been illegal in Bangladesh since the adoption of the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929. The government has passed a controversial law allowing marriages of underage girls and boys in special cases, should the parents so decide. I think this provision should be removed from the statute to end child marriage, he suggested.
We have laws and policies in place that operate as safeguards. We have a gap in the implementation of law and policies.
