Comments on: Where do the children play

By: Rafiq

Rafiq — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:51:21 +0000

Child domestic workers don’t just work for the affluent class, the practice is much more widespread. There needs to be concerted efforts to both raise awareness that this is wrong as well as create and enforce legal frameworks which help to ultimately end the practice. Realistically it won’t happen even in a couple of years. But it can happen and will.

By: Muhamad

Muhamad — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:45:28 +0000

Interesting. I’m glad you eschew violence. Still, the question remains as to whether there’s any evidence of slave owners volitionally giving up owning slaves?
The crucial, and more specific, question that arises from this article is why the affluent class of Bangladesh think that they can get away with the ill-treatment of vulnerable children.
Regardless of what class the children come from, shouldn’t Bangladesh legislate against child slave labour?

By: Sharmin

Sharmin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:44:50 +0000

Thanks for writing this. I guess this will serve the awareness part a bit. Although “where do children play” is equally applicable to the city dweller kids (not only child workers), there is no place for the city kids to do any physical activity. What will happen when this generation grows up?
-Sharmin

By: jyoti

jyoti — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:54:04 +0000

Muhamad, the use of quotation marks in “good” should have made the irony and self-criticism of us — the slave owning affluent class — clear.

How is change going to come? Throughout history, change has come through two ways:
1. Sudden upheaval/revolution where the ’slaves’ overthrew the ’slaveowners’.
2. Slaveowners realise the unfairness/inefficiency/wrong of their ways and act accordingly.

It should be clear from my writing that I eschew the first kind of change and propose the 2nd one, not just in this issue but also more generally.

By: Muhamad

Muhamad — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:52:00 +0000

My dear writer(s), having read from top to bottom of this article, I’m still unsure as to whether this is a condonation or condemnation of those who live with child-laboour?
On one hand, people are asked to recognise it as slavery, and on the other hand, most of the child-labour lovers and abusers are described as “good”.
And what an open-ended ending to the article with “child domestic worker”.
It would be perverse to describe the slave-drivers as philanthropists.
How is one to make a difference? Surely not by using a child for domestic work?

By: fugstar

fugstar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:08:20 +0000

Nice.

The best example I’ve seen is of domestic workers being educated in house. These things generally resemble the actual character of the employing families every day culture of practice.

Perhaps a toolkit/case study/best practice package can be developed for this. Perhaps this can be seeded in to the khutbas of the most likely mosques, the Lions clubs and what not.