UNB

Speakers at a workshop in Dhaka Friday explained how the district correspondents of print and electronic media could effectively report the child protection issues during floods, says UNB.

They said the correspondents should visit the relief camps and talk to the children personally to assess their real life situation in their reports so as to sensitize the whole society to come forward in aid of the children at risks.

Organised by UNICEF, the daylong workshop was held at the UNB auditorium. Some 55 UNB district correspondents attended the workshop, addressed by UNB Chairman Amanullah Khan, UNB Editor-in-Chief Enayetullah Khan, Ms Birgitte and Rezwan-ul Alam of UNICEF, and UNB Editor Golam Tahaboor. 

Addressing the inaugural session, UNB Chairman Amanullah Khan said the children issues that deserve highest consideration and priority in fact receive the least attention and thought.

He mentioned that as the gap between the rich and poor widens in a world dominated by adults, children issues and their rights have been ?relegated to the background at great peril to the future of our society.?

Khan lamented that the children ?routinely become the victims of neglect, apathy and indifference.?

?No wonder the condition of the children worldwide, particularly in the developing countries, has deteriorated as they continue to live in abject poverty and are being subjected to inhuman treatment, torture and discrimination,? he said.

?In Bangladesh,? he added, ?the problem of children?s abuse has taken a turn for the worse due to the state of our endemic poverty, absence of laws to adequately project children and lack of awareness about their rights.?

He continued: ?Child labour, use of children for immoral purposes and employment as jockeys add to the tale of miseries and sufferings of majority of our children.?

Khan said the workshop would come in handy to equip and empower UNB correspondents, provide a powerful tool in their hands to do good and help them to give voice to the voiceless children by focusing on tha children in distress and in dire need of relief, comfort and protection.

Thanking the UNICEF for organising the workshop, he said that since its establishment, the UN body has been striving against all odds to lift the children out of the morass and give them a chance at life through various programmes.

?UNICEF holds out a gleam of hope for the downtrodden, marginalised and lost children of God, globally particularly in the backward world,? he added.  

The daylong workshop also included group works, group presentations and open discussion with UNB city editor Shamsuddin Ahmed acting as moderator.