ALONG the streets, lanes and allies of Dhaka child labour Is rampant. Children from the age of 10 to IS go tn for such endeavours as selling peanuts, cigarettes and "naan ", polishing shoes and serving as coolies, if they are careless or committing any nuisance they are reportedly caught and hammered up or fined Tk 2 to Tk 15 and even locked up. Many of these starving mud covered and bedraggled children. with only a loin cloth on, have had the experience of be Ing taken to the vagrant homes tn Dhola and Puball. Here reportedly, they are neglected and kept in over crowed houses In poor living and un dernourishment.
The girls have even a worse fate than the boys. Many of the girls who have not reached puberty are pressed into immoral trafficking. The girls who serve as maids In the houses are poorly paid. They must wash and clean In as many as three different houses a day to get their square meals. They are seldom given any accommodation. Just a bowl of rice and a few scraps Is generally their reward Although young, they are often the means of support of their brothers and sisters and their widowed or divorced mother.
Lally Is a nine years old girl with sun tanned, muddy, curly shoulder length hair. She wears threadbare rags with patches and -holes tn the form of a thtrdhand pajama which she has bought for Taka 3. The shreds of the remnants of a frocks serves as a blouse which she obtained from the house where her mother worked. She has only another dirty and yellowing nicker and blouse which she clings on to. Her father has been punished for a petty theft in the neighbourhood. Her mother, a divorce, gets Tk 300 a month as a maid, which she finds better than selling wood in the village or working at the "dhekt", husking paddy. I used to sell wood for 50 paisas for a big bundle in the village and from this I could not get even a quarter seer of rice. I was advised by my relatives to come to Dhaka and to work here. On reaching Dhaka, however, I was often caught and sent to the vagrant home In Dhola, ' Lally narrates.
"You are given only boiled 'kochu' and 'data'. There Is no rice. You are served roti' without salt. There is no connection with the family. The children are separated from the parents and the brothers from the sisters. They keep us in congested mud floors. There are no windows in the rooms. The doors are locked from outside. One ends up with dysentery and skin trouble living under these conditions", she complains.
"1 have washed dishes and ground spice for three years in the residential colonics. 1 have never been given any clothes or shelter. Apart from this, never get any money. I'm paid with some rice and ‘daaT once a day so that I must work in three houses everyday. If I can’t work due to ill health I must beg for "phen” from the kitchen,' she narrates sadly. Amina who is 13 looks so ema-
ciated and tired out that she appears only seven years old She has dirty knotted hair and mud splattered hands and legs She reports of being harassed by "goondas who want cheap women. Wearing a tattered blouse and loin cloth she nar rates with downcast looks in her pensive eyes that she has been used like other women tn the streets although her body Is like that of a child and she has not yet reached puberty "These people know all about having periods, getting pregnant. and many other things before their puberty." narrates a social worker, who helps educate and distribute food and clothes on a charity basis among the vagrants
T came to Dhaka three years
ago when a seer of rice sold at Tk 10. My father died of small pox. I came with my uncle who had to return to our village Nandini as he could find no other Job but that of cutting paddy In areas far from the city and this did not pay much. While 1 have sold wood In the cold and wet weather at home, here I have to often beg for gruel" she says The middle class families have about three Children on the average and can employ only one servant. The wandering urchins who wash and wipe are not paid even Tk. 10 per month. "One is paid not according to the capacity of work but according to one's size. Thus the older maid Is paid as much as Taka 250 a month while we are only given left overs of the kitchen." Amina narrates.
Fatima is so thin and stunted that she looks six although she Is 10 years old. She has often begged with stories of a sick and old father and starvation at home. She has no mother and has a step-mother who treats her brutality while her father could not be bothered as he has children by the second marriage to fend for.
*My father has had a major operation in the stomach and he cannot work much, as it is. I can cook and clean and look after a child. I can cook simple daal-bhat'. But I'm afraid to gs to work leaving the shelter where I live for fear of being caught by the police and sent to Dhola where they starve you and lock you up”. Fatima comments about herself. Abdul Karim a 15 year old from Fa rid pur who is tn Dhaka for a few months now says, “People gave me the tmpres sion that If you to Dhaka, there are good jobs to be had very easily 1 have looked for domestic work at Hatkhola. Arambagh. Fokirapool and Kamalapur, but as I have no guardian to stand security people are afraid to employ me as they fear that I will steal and run away One can sell peanuts or cigarettes or even do boot polish work in parks and at bus stands, railway stations and near cinema halls. But if I earn Tk 30 a day. this automat IcaJly goes to appearing the darawans so that I am left with nothing.
As a coolie there is a lot of competition so that I earn only Tk 40 a day I could have gone in for driving a rick shaw but I don't know the roads and I'm afraid of breaking some traffic rule or the other, he narrates. Sattar and Mannan, his younger brothers have been reported as sheer lazy by the social welfare workers as they ran away from the homes where they were sent to work as they can get frac food, shelter and elothes at the local langarkhana .
Living at Kalabagan, 15-year old Bablu can get no other Job. Before, while living in Naya Paltan, he has done whitewashing. His father spreads Insecticides on the roads. He has elder brothers, who have tried to get Jobs in mills nearby but in vain.
Moreover the pay did not cover the transport cost to and from work.
Cheated by rogues and underpaid by the middle c(pss employers, the half clad chil dren on the road carry on an existence which is admirably for Its Independence and consistency.
They do not easily give way to the frequent rounding up by the social workers and police and continue to peddle their wares even on holidays. Yes, there are delinquents and lazy ones, but too many appear just overworked and neglected which is heart rendering considering their youth and apparent innocence. Surely they deserve a better existence and brighter prospects.