A patrol team of police last Sunday midnight found a lost girl, crying alone on the street at Fatullah. The girl, a runaway domestic help, could only tell her name -- she couldn't tell her home address or the place where she used to work.

The 12-year-old girl, Shathi (not her real name), can remember all the horrors she underwent at her employer's house, where her grandfather brought her as a domestic help a month ago.

The employer's wife hardly showed any sympathy to Shathi and used to beat her up almost every day. Unable to bear the torture any more, the little girl left the house for Mymensingh thinking she can manage to return home by herself. But she lost her way.

After she wandered around for two days in the streets of

Dhaka, the police found her and took her to the shelter home of Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), a human rights and legal aid protection organisation.

“This is not an unusual case in this city. Torture of domestic workers, especially children is now such a common and frequent incident that newspaper readers do not even read these news any more,” said Gita Chakrobarty of ASK.

The statistical report on violence against child domestic workers compiled by ASK proves her statement to be true. The number of such incidents is rising alarmingly.

According to the ASK report, 80 reports on violence against child domestic workers were published in newspapers in 2003 and the number rose to 87 in 2004. And this year, a staggering number of 165 cases were reported until November 15.

The incidents take place mostly in the capital city.

“The victims survive if they are taken to any shelter home run by an NGO, but if their destiny is any of the government vagrant homes, they would remain there for years almost like prisoners," said Ila Chanda of ASK.

"We kept Shathi at our shelter home for a few days. She is fortunate because she has already left for home with her father,” she added. ASK has a programme to help the missing or tortured children return home or take shelter in safe custody.

The report also shows that the number of cases filed is fewer than the actual number of incidents. The cases of physical torture filed with different police stations have increased in last two years. The number of cases was 46 in 2003, 68 in 2004 and 99 in 2005.

Ila Chanda explained: “The main reasons behind the fewer

number of cases filed comparing to the actual number of incidents, are threats from the employers, insecurity of the victims and their family, and political influences.”

She also pointed out that because of the high tolerance level and ignorance of law, the parents of the torture victims sometimes discourage the human rights activists to take any move against the crime. “The parents have taken it for granted that the employers can beat up the child workers as their guardians,” Ila Chanda observed.

There is no specific law for protecting the child domestic workers in the country, but Bangladesh is one of the first countries to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that assures protection of such children's rights.

Ila Chanda said the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, 2000 assures

the protection of child workers, although there is no specific provision for the child domestic workers. "The problem also lies in the enforcement of the laws. Because of lengthy process of trial, justice for these children is never assured,” she noted.

Asked, a high official of the

Ministry of Women and Children Affairs on condition of anonymity said, “There is much difference between theory and practice in our country. That's why implementation of laws to ensure such children's rights was never guaranteed.”