CHILDREN, the future of a nation, are often vulnerable and at risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence. In the early 20th century, child protection laws often focused on preventing child labour and ensuring children鈥檚 basic needs. By this time, many countries had brought significant reforms to their child protection systems. Fundamentally, the child protection system aligns with international mandates such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Sustainable Development Goals. These frameworks obligate states and communities to prevent, respond to and provide services to protect every child from abuse and harm.
In the whole system, social workers play pivotal roles: (a) as the first line of defence; (b) as inclusive support providers; (c) child rights advocates; and (d) multidisciplinary collaborators contributing significantly to child well-being. Currently, social work stands as a standalone global profession due to its nonviolent, dignified, cost-effective, holistic, and sustainable nature. However, it struggles to gain legitimate recognition in some regions, including South Asia. The need for robust child protection at the marginalised level is crucial in contrasting to the different drivers, ie, poverty, social inequality, and conflict. Additionally, children can be victims of violence at different levels (individual, family, group, or community) through various ways.
Eminent peace researcher Johan Galtung has classified the phenomenon of violence: (a) personal or direct, ie, security forces attacks, terrorist attacks, torture, vandalism, assault, and so on; (b) structural or indirect, ie, injustice, discrimination, neglect, classism, exploitation, harassment, institutional praxis; and (c) cultural or symbolic, i.e., religion, language, beliefs and ideology. He also defined peace into two types 鈥� negative and positive. Negative peace refers to the absence of war and violence. It starts when an undesirable situation stops or ends happening, eg, the armed conflict, oppression, and ethnic cleansing. Positive peace is filled with the restoration of relationships, the operation of social systems that serve the needs of the entire population, and the beneficial resolution of conflict. Notably, the concerns of crime, conflict and violence prevail in the third world.
These situations necessitate switching the practice of social work to identify and root out the problem at its source as well as sustain reconciliation for its restorative approach to the victim鈥檚 perspective and community involvement.
The United Nations Development Programme in 1994 introduced a new concept of human security that equates security with people rather than territories, with development rather than arms comprising a set of issues i.e., economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political security. When local institutions fail to provide equitable access to justice and economic opportunities for their members, causing violence and insecurity, ultimately leading to threats of national security and regional instability.
In this regard, Bangladesh has made significant advances in developing a legal and policy framework for child protection, i.e., the National Welfare Policy 2005, the National Child Policy 2011, the Children Act 2013, the National Action Plan for the Elimination of Child Labour 2021-2025, the National Plan of Action to Combat Human Trafficking 2018-2022, the Birth and Death Registration Act 2004, the 8th Five-Year Plan, the National Social Security Strategy, and so on. Among them, the Children Act, the main law for child protection, defines a 鈥榗hild鈥� as a person up to the age of 18 and outlines the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders, including social workers to protect from abuse, exploitation, and neglect, eliminate child labour, prevent child marriage, and provide special measures to the children at risk.
However, Bangladesh still witnesses 89 per cent of children below 14 experience physical and emotional harassment at home, and 51 per cent of girl children marry before reaching their 18th birthday. About 97.6 per cent children experience sexual abuse and 98.7 per cent of children experience beating at their workplace (Child Labour Survey 2022). Alarmingly, 82.9 per cent of children in street settings face abuse or harassment by pedestrians, and 49.8 per cent are victims of violence at their place of work (BBS 2022).
Children living on the streets require specialised child protection services such as education, life skills training, and counselling, as they may find it difficult to share information, even with their parents. One of the most important events on the involvement of social workers was in the Survey on Street Children 2022 in managing data, whereas other enumerators were struggling in the data collection phase. Above all, reintegration and rehabilitation are fairly familiar and convenient with the trained, qualified and dedicated social workers. Recently, developments in The Qualitative Study for Street Children have heightened the need for a normative social services workforce for child protection in Bangladesh.
A great deal of early identification of children with disabilities as well as inclusion of education and training in order to mainstreaming involves understanding, suggesting solutions to this problem, and referring to the services or caregivers. Particularly in applied fields, certified peer support workers are impactful for bridging up the parents, families, communities, and other duty bearers.
With support from organisations such as UNICEF and the EU, the country is focused on strengthening child welfare boards, adolescent clubs, and community-based child protection committees. These efforts aim to address issues such as child marriage, child labour, unsafe migration, trafficking and school dropouts, as well as juvenile delinquency. Through constant community dialogues, trainings and seminars at various levels with multi-stakeholders, the Department of Social Services is intensifying the recognition of children鈥檚 voices and advocating for their rights. Notably, Child Helpline 1098 (toll-free) round the clock provides counselling, emergency response, and referral services to children on the occurrences or likelihoods of abuse, neglect, trafficking, or other forms of violence, where social workers are the blood of the helpline and are the crucial facilitators of essential services for children.
The principle of the sovereignty of human rights was mostly absent in Bangladesh. The previous regime did not proportionately utilise social work in addressing crime and violence and maintaining law and order, thus hampering the overall socio-ecological system. The success of the social work profession is proven in prevention and building sustainable human resources.
Yet, administrators and decision makers in Bangladesh are not familiar with the professional practice and operation of social work; they even view it as charity work and do not consider higher-level professional education essential for it. The Department of Social Service, the leading department of social work until 1973, hired social work graduates; however, in 1974, it changed its recruitment policy, allowing individuals with master鈥檚 degrees in any academic discipline. Furthermore, limited opportunities for professional growth and almost blocked chances for promotion compel many employees to leave for other sectors, resulting in a significant brain drain with a high turnover rate of almost 40 per cent. This instability in human resources affects the quality and quantity of social services. More to these, the malpractice of appointing officials on deputation from other services to top positions in the department and development projects hinders social work practices because they often don鈥檛 have a social work background. They consider this a mere administrative job and dispose of the task based on general rules and regulations minus the theories and framework of social work as well as field practicum or against the viewpoint of social workers. They often seek lucrative positions, compromising with unfair means, thus hindering the befitting manners of the evolution of social work practice and reforms.
As a profession, social work has not earned professional status with public and state recognition, and there is no accreditation body for social workers like the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council for doctors and the Bangladesh Bar Council for advocates. Accredited programmes can help standardise competencies and benchmarks for qualifications and skills of social workers with career advancement opportunities and their professionalisation in the field. In general, the probation programme addresses children in conflict with the law, focusing on their mental, social, financial, familial, and community well-being by diverting them from the regular courts and policing systems. Despite a provision in the Children Act 2013 to deploy probation officers in every district and sub-district based on the needs of vulnerable children, the government has not assigned a single full-fledged officer. The prime concern is the lack of permanent offices with social workers at all levels. Instead, interventions have been project-based for a few decades due to fund and skills constraints, which hinder the government鈥檚 ability to provide contextualised, customised, timely and effective support for children. Moreover, child protection programmes are fragmented, with different government ministries and agencies working without the required coordination.
It is heartening that in the first National Symposium for Child Protection held on September 19, 2022, the Child Help Line along with outreach activities were recognised as the best practices and concluded with a call to action for stakeholders to formulate social work policy, establish referral mechanisms, invest in strengthening the social services workforce and design programmes for good parenting. Having lots of听 drawbacks, the child protection system is blessed with a set of trained and experienced social workers, viable activities and tools, monitoring, evaluation, and accountability mechanisms through two projects supported by UNICEF and the EU: the CSPB Project under the Development of Social Services and the APC Project under the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs. The former is recommended by the Planning Commission to embody or nationalise under the revenue budget of Bangladesh.
Notwithstanding all limitations to social work, social workers are committed to promoting peace, addressing inequalities, empowering individuals to achieve their full potential, contributing significantly to community stability and human security, and building a nurturing environment where future generations are safe, supported and able to thrive.
It is also crucial to reform the social services sector, highlighting the establishment of an accreditation body for social work, the design of social work policy, the activation of referral mechanisms, the development of monitoring and evaluation, the coordination mechanism, the engagement of children and adolescents, and building career pathways for social work professionals.
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Mohammad Amran Khan is an assistant director at the Department of Social Services.
