Due to extreme poverty, a lack of access to contraception, and a lack of education, Bangladeshi children are being driven onto the streets. Children’s poverty in Bangladesh may also be the result of governmental corruption, dysfunction, and neglect. Many street children die young due to neglect, hunger, and sickness since they have no permanent dwelling or sleeping quarters. They are sometimes seen on the street selling flowers, literature, or trinkets, especially to motorists stuck in traffic. Street children, like those in other parts of the world, frequently lack access to healthful nutrition, resulting in the eating of unsanitary food. Hunger is a persistent concern in the region. An overwhelming majority of street children, especially girls, face sexual harassment on a regular basis and the harassment usually starts with the person who provides them with food and shelter.
Ayesha Akter Eti is one of the resilient youths from the Jahangir Nagar University chapter. Some days before, while walking near Shaheed Minar street, one of the resilient youths, Ayesha Eti saw that a 9-10 years old street child (girl) was being sexually harassed by 3 floating shopkeepers of that place. She was just a child, not even a teenager. She may know the shopkeepers very well as they stay there every day. The shopkeepers were molesting her in her private place and behaving like all of them were just loving her cordially. They were saying to offer her an ice cream. She was trying to get rid of it but failed. The north side of the Shaheed Minar was so crowded at that time and they molested the child using the opportunity. Last year, the country was shocked to see news that a street child was murdered after being raped. In a crowded area, the street child was murdered maybe because of her ignorance of sexual violation and she couldn’t feel that the man will rape her or she had no authority. Most of the street children are parentless and that’s why most of them are not aware of sexual abuse. Many of them even don’t know that they are being harassed sexually; they don’t know that all men who touch them don’t touch them with bad intentions. So for the sake of making street children aware of their security, Ayesha Eti initiated the project. As she has targeted to make the street children aware of sexual abuse, a group of street children together to conduct sessions as needed. For that reason, Eti has collaborated with Amader Biddaniketon which is a floating school for street children situated near Dania College in Dhaka South City. This school usually gives the street children pre-primary education and admits them to any government or non-government institution after giving pre-primary education.
Ayesha along with her team organized a total of fourteen sessions with some 22 street children from the Amader Bidyaniketan organization about the drawbacks of sexual abuse. In her sessions, she gave ideas about the initial knowledge of sexual abuse, the difference between the good and bad touch, private places, basic strategies to defend themselves from abuse, and how to get legal support. After her sessions, she organized quiz programs for the children in order to assess their knowledge. However, as this is a problem addressing program, Eti tried to focus on making street children aware of the ongoing problem they are facing and to some extent making them prepared for tackling this sort of incident.
On 10th December 2021, Ayesha Eti along with her volunteers created a human chain on the occasion of international human rights day along with street children and named the program “Increasing awareness with human chain” 31 street children were present along with 9 teachers of Amader Biddaniketon. Every year the 10th of December is celebrated as International Human Rights Day all over the world. This year International Human Rights Day has been celebrated in Bangladesh by various kinds of rallies, human chains, or sessions. Team SAVE the street children has decided to celebrate the day by creating a human chain on Dhaka-Chittagong Highway by holding some posters against sexual abuse of street children.
After the basic learning strategies of sexual abuse, Ayesha organized feedback sessions with the children. Interestingly, she found that two of the children have experienced sexual abuse before but due to some social stigma and other fears they were reluctant to share their stories. Before the project, no one discusses the abuse incidents they have experienced. They never consider the abuse as sexual abuse and it is harmful to mental health too. The street children never knew about their dangerous places in the human body.
A street child named Shaon shared his experience when he used the learning outcomes of sessions. On the eve of December, one day when he was selling tea and cigarettes in his local area, a man called him to buy cigarettes in a corner of an alley. After giving it to the man, the man said that he would give the money but the boy needed to listen to him. Besides, he started to touch the backsides of Shaon several times. Moreover, he was also touching his own private places. Seeing his unusual behavior, Shaon could understand that the intention of the men was not good. He remembered the behavior of child sexual abusers so he could identify. Because he is concerned now about sexual abuse and its long-term mental effects. Another one named Rayhana (09) living in the Dania area told that before a lot of men used to call her saying that they would buy her chocolates. She used to go to them and become abused. But now if anyone calls her, she doesn’t respond as she is now aware of the activities of abuse.