Let all flowers be blossomed

According to UNICEF, children make up 1.9 billion people or 27% of the world's population. Yet violence kills about 130,000 children annually while over one billion face violent punishment at home and 90 million have experienced sexual violence. In Bangladesh, home to nearly 60 million children, Ain o Salish Kendra recorded 596 child murders in 2021, 516 in 2022, 485 in 2023, 575 in 2024 and 410 in 2025. Since 5 August 2024, 643 children have reportedly been killed through rape and torture in 20 months. HRSS documented 1,890 child abuse cases between January 2025 and April 2026, including 483 killings, 580 rapes, 318 cases of sexual abuse and 1,407 incidents of physical and mental torture. The numbers reflect how many of the world's most promising flowers are being cruelly plucked in the bud.

Nations fight, childhood bleeds
Borders too have become graveyards for childhood. Between 2009 and 2025, at least 23 children were killed along the Bangladesh-India border. On the Bangladesh-Myanmar frontier, nine-year-old Huzaifa Sultana Afnan was killed by gunfire and Satnaing Tanchanga died after an abandoned mortar shell exploded in Bandarban. Save the Children estimates 4,044 children died on migration routes between 2014 and early 2025, while many Guatemalan migrant children have died at the US border since 2019.

Childhood in the grip of armed groups and politics
The rise of extremism, coupled with armed groups recruiting children, has placed childhood under greater threat and even mainstream political parties exploit disadvantaged children for their own ends. The UN estimates more than 150,000 children were recruited into armed conflicts in last two decades. Attacks on schools and hospitals escalated in Iran, Myanmar, Burkina Faso and Mali, while Boko Haram abducted hundreds of schoolgirls.
Children are also prime victims of political violence. They became injured by crude bombs, burned in arson attacks, used as human shields in rallies. Human rights groups say 168 street children were killed during Anti Discrimination Movement in Bangladesh in 2024. BRAC found 62% of Dhaka's street children lost shelter during the unrest, while 41 children were killed and 107 seriously injured. Annual child killings now outnumber deaths from political violence, mob attacks and custodial deaths combined. 

Violence against children begins at home
For many Bangladeshi children, the greatest danger lies at home. Family feuds and domestic violence continue to claim young lives like three-year-old Nur Abdullah in Mirsarai, four-year-old Anjuara Begum in Rangpur, seven-year-old Ira in Sitakunda and the beheading of three daughters by their father in Cox's Bazar. The Bangladesh Institute of Mental Health reports 85% of child abuse is committed by someone known to the victim. UNICEF estimates nine in ten children experience domestic violence monthly, while Bangladesh Medical University found 86.1% of urban parents physically abuse their children and 14.7% inflict psychological abuse, revealing that the home, a child's first refuge, can also become the place where childhood is first lost. 

Cruelty in classrooms
Despite the High Court's 2011 ban on corporal punishment, abuse remains widespread in schools, madrasas, orphanages and religious institutions, where weak oversight, fear, stigma and powerful patrons silence victims. Recent cases include a ten-year-old rescued with his feet chained and a twelve-year-old girl who became pregnant after rape. Teachers are regarded as second only to parents, yet some have become demons to the children they are meant to protect.

Sexual assault
Sexual violence against children remains one of the gravest human rights crises in Bangladesh. The rape and killing cases of Aasia and Ramisa reflect its brutality. Media reports recorded 118 child rapes and 115 child murders in the first four months of 2026, including 59 deaths by torture and 12 after rape. Over the previous 20 months, 642 children were reportedly raped and murdered. HRSS documented 580 child rapes and 318 cases of sexual abuse between January 2025 and April 2026. Recent reports on abuse of boys in madrasas shows that no child is beyond its reach.

Other threats and abuses
Children are face growing threats from poverty, child labour, trafficking, road crashes and online abuse. In 2026, Bangladesh recorded the world's highest number of measles-related child deaths, surpassing Sudan. The ILO estimates 138 million children work worldwide, including 54 million in hazardous jobs. In Bangladesh, 3.38 million children are labourers, including 1.3 million in hazardous work and 9.2% of those aged between 5 and 17. At least three children are abducted daily, while road crashes killed 1,008 children in 2025 and 231 more between January and March 2026. The online world is equally dangerous, with 166 child suicides linked to fears of intimate videos, while 35% of rural children faced cyberbullying and 56% of boys and 64% of girls experienced online sexual abuse.

What does the law say?
Guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Sustainable Development Goals, Bangladesh aims to end violence against children by 2030. The Children Act, 2013, the Prevention of Violence against Women and Children Act, 2000, the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2017 and the Pornography Control Act, 2012 are backed by the National Child Policy, specialised children's courts, child desks at police stations and helplines 1098, 999 and 109. Yet these protections will remain ineffective without swift investigation and prosecution of every case of abuse, rape, trafficking and murder.

What can we do?
Children do not ask for war, violence or silence. They ask only for safety, love and the ordinary chance to grow. A society that lets a child vanish, unaccompanied and unmourned, has already failed at its most basic obligation. Speedy justice, education on "good touch, bad touch," vigilant families and a safer digital world are not aspirations rather, they are the minimum a civilised state owes its young. Let every flower, wherever it grows, be given the chance to blossom.