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Children in Urban Slum

They suffer conditions that beggar description

Pankaj Karmakar
On a sunny morning when all the children accompanied by their parents were rushing to school, Hashi, an eight-year old girl-child, was collecting waste papers, dry leafs and wood pieces from the road side to help her mother who would burn those as fuel to cook.
She was walking barefoot along the street holding a bag by one hand, and picking up and putting the bits into the bag by the other.
This is not a single day scenario, rather the same is occurring regularly for over last two years.
"My mother has sent me here to collect these because all of my family members will have to starve if I do not," said Hashi with frightened eyes apprehending she might be scolded or beaten for committing the "offence".
Hashi, who is exposed to the harsh realities from the moment she was bom, lives in a railway colony slum at Rajarbagh area of the capital Dhaka with mother and three other younger bothers and sisters aged between two and six.
Hashi's mother Marjina Begum said her husband had fled away around two years ago when their 4th baby was bom. Since then she has been maintaining the five-member family through begging or working as domestic
Around 200 ultra-poor families live in the slum mostly coming from rural areas five to 10 years ago due to river erosion or employment crisis selling out all their rural properties whatever they had.
With rapid growth of urbanization, a large chunk of rural population started heading towards urban areas in search of employment and improved standard of life.
Currently around 41.7 million people are living in urban areas, 28 percent of the total population of Bangladesh, said a report titled "The State of the World's Children-2012’ byUnicef.
For millions of children, the urban experience is one of poverty and exclusion. They are facing severe hardship and challenging conditions unlike other urban children who are often included in development programmes.
In Bangladesh's urban slums most of the male residents work as labourers or in garments factories or pull rickshaw, while the female residents mostly work as sweeper or domestic help.
While it is generally believed that a large chunk of the country's child population lives in urban slums, there are no statistics to put a number on these children who are considered as the most vulnerable in the society.
Visiting spots and analysing data, it becomes clear that
many children living in urban poverty are clearly disadvantaged and excluded from higher education, health services and other urban benefits enjoyed by their better-off peers.
The Unicef report found that there are five sorts of deprivations the slum children face. These are horn — access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, security of tenure, durability of housing and sufficient living area.
Entering into the slum, it was noticed that around a dozen children wearing half pant and in barefoot were playing with football in a damp space.
IWo of them go to school, while others were not enrolled for reasons understood, moreover long distance of'nearby' school.
"I cannot provide meal for three times to the children. How can I send them to school?" said Motahar Hossain, 35, a resident of the slum, who earns livelihood by pulling rickshaw.
Neither the government nor any NGO ever took any initiative to arrange for education of the children in the slum, said Motahar.