|
July
27, 2000
Moulvibazar,
July 26 (UNB) – Social Welfare activists have expressed concern over
the rising trend of child laborers in the district in the recent
times.
Caught
by various natural calamities like floods and cyclones the poor
parents failing to provide food and education to their kids were
forced to engage them in odd jobs to eke out their living and support
their distressed families.
Many
families of the low-income group of people have been rendered homeless
and destitute as the local moneylenders grabbed their lands and
homesteads for failing to repay the loans taken from them.
According
to a survey, the children of the destitute families aged between eight
and 12 years are working as hotel-boys, shoe-polishers, rickshaw
pullers and day laborers.
With
the meager income, they support their families who squat in slums
posing threat to the town dwellers.
Beside,
many young girls of these distressed families took recourse to
prostitution for their bare survival, which has further jeopardized
the social harmony in the town.
Local
elite has urged the concerned authorities to construct vagrant homes
in the outskirts of the town for the rehabilitation of a large number
of destitute children.
|
