Children's dreams nipped in the bud

No caption needed, the picture tells it all. (Photo: GMB Akash)

Internationally acclaimed Bangladeshi photographer GMB Akash posted an image on Facebook on June 10 that showed an approximately 10-year-old girl, dressed in school uniform, riding an auto rickshaw with her father at a traffic signal in Dhaka. Standing nearby, a boy of her age was trying to sell popcorn to her.

The caption read: “At the age where he should play and study, he is earning to fill his stomach! No one deserves this childhood!”

Thousands expressed their shock at this sad reality, while dozens blamed the boy's parents and failed social and state systems for failing to ensure his proper upbringing.

The scene is shocking and heart-rending but it is a familiar picture in poorer and developing nations around the world. Millions of children continue to lose their childhood, potential and dreams every year.

Some 153 million children aged 5-17, or almost one out of 10, are engaged in child labor across the globe, including 73 million in hazardous jobs, according to the United Nations.

South Asia, which accounts for one third of the world’s poor, is home to 17 million child laborers and 50 million children are out of school, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported.

Forgotten and invisible: modern-day slaves

Indian sex workers look out from their brothel in the red light district of Kamathipura in Mumbai. Socially conservative India, Bangladesh and Pakistan do not permit legal prostitution but all have brothels spilling with sex workers. (Photo: AFP)

In today’s modern world overshadowed by extravagant globalization, materialism and consumerism, it is very common for people to forget about people who are less fortunate.

These people with relative fortune and comfort might get a jolt if asked what they think about slavery and slaves. In most cases, the answer is likely to be simple: slavery was abolished in the 19th century.

The British parliament passed its Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 and the US government made the 13th amendment to the constitution in 1865, marking the official abolition of slavery.

However, slavery didn’t end with its abolition 154 years ago. It has just changed forms and continues to plague millions of people in the world today.  

The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery on Dec. 2 passed almost unnoticed in much of the globe as if our world today has almost pulled itself out of the curse of slavery.
The reality is that about 40 million people are trapped in various forms of modern-day slavery and one in every four victims are children, according to the United Nations.