The recurring reports of physical and sexual abuse of children within educational institutions across the country lay bare what can only be termed a horrifying national failure.
When schools, madrasas, and learning centres - places meant to nurture and protect our nation’s youth - become sites of predatory violence and terror, the foundational contract between society and the state is shattered.
Recent alarms raised by child rights advocates regarding abuse cases expose a pervasive, systemic rot that can no longer be ignored or swept under the rug with bureaucratic platitudes.
For too long, child protection in Bangladesh has been undermined by a culture of silence, social stigma, and institutional cover-ups. Predators are allowed to operate with virtual impunity, exploiting power imbalances to silence vulnerable victims through threats and intimidation.
When children are forced to choose between their education and their personal safety, the institutional framework entrusted with their welfare has utterly collapsed.
Protecting children cannot remain a rhetorical talking point for NGOs and press releases. The government must immediately enforce rigorous, binding child-protection protocols across every educational institution nationwide, without exception.
Allegations of abuse must be met with swift, impartial criminal investigation, prosecution, and absolute accountability, stripping away the impunity enjoyed by so many perpetrators.
Educational authorities too must do their part by establishing secure, confidential reporting channels and robust psychosocial support systems, ensuring that victims and their families are believed, protected, and prioritized.
A nation that fails to safeguard its children from predators within its own classrooms has forfeited its moral authority. We need to be getting rid of this rot with the urgency it warrants, ruthlessly purging abusive environments and transforming our schools and madrasas into genuine safe havens before more generations of children are scarred by institutional cowardice.