Re-defining childhood not enough to control juvenile delinquencies

Jitu, a 10th grader student, had beaten a college professor Utpal Kumar Sarkar to death last week. Sarkar was the Political Science teacher and the head of the disciplinary committee of Haji Younus Ali School and College in Savar.

Soon after that heinous act by a teenage boy, the state mechanism, the law enforcing agencies and intellectuals in the country raised their voicesagainst juvenile delinquencies.

It's not the only example that claimed mass attention. Adnan murder in 2017 andRifat Sharif homicide in 2019 horrified the whole nation. Oishee, the teenage daughter of Mahfuzur and Swapna Rahman, killed her parents with the help of her friends in 2013. Mahfuzur was an inspector of Special Branch of police. It is undoubtedly one of the brutal example of vitiation of teenagers in the country.

The number of teen gangs and their nuisance raised at an alarming rate in the last couple of decades throughout the country. And finally the government decided to move on the issue. Better late than never!

In a recent meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Law and Order,a decision of amending the Children Act 2013 was taken to reduce the legal age of adulthood from 18 years to 14 years in order to bring teenage offenders and juvenile gangs under the established judicial criminal procedures in the country.

But is the reduction of childhood age limit a right approach to wipe out the tautness? Is that enough? The straight answer is a big 'No'.

If we try to trace out the sources of such delinquencies, what canwe see? The writer here like to blame quick digitization process first. We have proudly entered into the 'Information Super Highway' in an unfiltered way. We gave the children access to all modern devices and networks. They are getting addicted to fatal virtual games like Blue Whale and PUBG.

Teenagers are getting acquainted with TikTok and BTS culture to win the race of weirdness. Spending a larger portion of their time on social media platforms in exchanging tension, fake information and propaganda of various anti-social and anti-harmonic virtual communities.

Beside these, the young adult's dependency on Internet of Things (IoTs) in educated society is resulting in insomnia, intolerance, mood swings and insolence. Such things are making the teenagers prone to crime. They are getting easy access to information and resources about pornography, sex, drugs and other crimes at hand in no time.

They are using the Tiktok app or social media groups to create new gangs and committing crimes like eve teasing, hijacking, rape, drug dealing, juvenile homicide,mugging, stalking, and killing rival gang members.

If we give a bird's eye view on the members of those gangs, we can see that they generally work in grocery stores, tea shops, and markets or simply do nothing. It means, the little educated or uneducated section's access to information and technology is one of the main reasons behind rising teen gangs in the country.

The Tiktok 'sensation' Opubhai, also Tiktok gang leader, is a boy from barber shop. Members of such gangs maintain the same haircut, wear same kind of clothes, shoes, draw tattoos on the body and carry special knives and blades.

The government however, has taken filtering initiatives but to check the pornography only. Ensuring NID verification for using the sites containing materials not suitable for children and young adults alongside school ID verification for below 18 content can be the most convenient and effective way of filtering.

Another vital reason for increasing teenage gangs is the erosion of social values and the upsurge of corruption and crimes in all spheres of our life. A father taking bribe or over exercising power, can't teach ethics to his children. A mother engaged in adultery and other unsocial activities is hardly capable of guiding her child to a social life.

Student's politics at school level is probably the biggest podium in creating juvenile gangs. When all the leading political parties have failed to the keep the control over the students involved in politics at University level, then the introduction of student's politics at school and colleges is nothing but inviting the danger.

The kids are hardly matured enough to bear the weight of political positions next to their name.

Furthermore, drop outs from schools and colleges, street dwelling children, kids from ultra-poor families, children of broken families and the teenagers having fake-heroism within are also getting involved in such groups.

Amending Children act therefore, will be the establishment of a misconception that we'll be able to bring the deviated kids under control by penalizing them. Are the boys and girls only responsible for their deviation?

In March this year, local inhabitants of AmtoliUpazila in Borgunadistrict created a human chain claiming arrest of a teenage gangleader. It means the boy is so powerful that the law enforcing agency is reluctant to arrest him. What is the source of his power? The answer is local political leader.

Besides, shadow big brothers or big bosses of their locality give them shelter. Drug dealers and the godfathers are making use of the teenagers as there is limited provision for penalizing the teens.

Look at the footpaths adjacent to the Bangabhaban, the official residence of the president, you will see a large number of street boys and girls taking drugs. A thousands of such streets are the sanctuaries of drug addicted teenagers, who commit several crimes together.

If the country becomes a save heaven for drug dealers, what will be the outcome of punishing the children promising crimes?

So, limiting age is not the panacea of the problem. Everyone is raising finger, shouting for remedies, rising own voice in talk-shows. But the question is, who is to bell the cat? Many a whiz indicate to the family and social institutions.

The common terms heard from everyone regarding the remedies of juvenile delinquencies are close family ties, moral education, recreational facilities, proper schooling and so on. But all these are ad nauseam.

Hardly parents in our country have parenting education and the idea about dealing youth teenage sentiment. We are teaching a large number of subjects in our schools and colleges. But the writer considers mandatory parenting education at school and colleges as the biggest solution to many a social problems including deviation of our children.  

Finally, a teenage boy may be found with arms and shoot anybody to death.He can be sentenced to death by amending laws but the suppliers of the guns will create thousand more gangs every day.  So, it's high time to evacuate the roots, destroy the mechanism that works behind the scene.
The writer is with Daily Observer and a law student