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.