The shame of it
Photo of Kalpana Majumdar who allegedly shoved Moni Mala (15) and Madhabi (10) off the 6th floor terrace. Moni Mala died on the spot.
Star Weekend Magazine highlights the shameful abuse of child domestic workers in Bangladesh. That the very poor will want to send their kids into domestic service for some extra money/food&clothing is understandable. But how our shikkhito middle-class bhodroloks can, in good conscience, employ little children, sometimes as young as 6 or 7 years old, to do arduous household work is beyond comprehension. And that’s even before the criminal abuse - the beatings, the scaldings, the gorom pani and the hot khunti - employed against what is possibly the most vulnerable and helpless of any group in our society.
Kudos to SWM for putting this front and centre. If the funding will stretch that far, I suggest that this issue, which generally flies under the radar, should be wholeheartedly embraced by DP. Fund-raising/awareness-raising for an issue like this is of little use when done outside Bangladesh. It’s best done inside Bangladesh, preferably in the form that will most effectively reach its target audience - i.e. televisual means.
TV spots and short ads are one way of doing it. But an even better way might be if DP could commission a top director like Farooki to make one of his mormo-sporshi natoks on this theme. The target - i.e. middle-class households - will watch TV natoks made by a good director, and a well-written, hard-hitting natok on primetime will affect and influence a lot more people than any number of newspaper articles (in English no less) will ever do.
Thoughts, ideas?