Rights as Contested Discourse in Global Development Concern

Although some Bangladeshi children enjoy a cheerful childhood, many of them get troubled by either study pressure or poverty. In our culture, children and adolescents have a vast difference in social position as Rabindranath Tagore adorably draws adolescence as ‘evil’ in his story Chhuti. Now adolescents are claiming separate rights from children as an active part of development. It is excellent that every child and adolescent informant was found to know about her/his right of education. Although the rate of regular school going children and adolescents has increased, some of them are not interested to study despite having opportunity to get free education. Though Bangladesh has a great achievement of MDG award 2010 for reducing child mortality rate, it does not mean that proper health rights of living children are ensured everywhere. Gender discrimination among adolescents is very clear in providing rights of leisure and amusement. An adolescent girl means a mature one compared to a boy of same age, yet in Bangladesh culture girls are more deprived of their rights than their counterparts. Children and adolescents think that ever-increasing pressure of study and terribly growing competitive mentality of guardians are spoiling their right to leisure. Like many other ‘developing’ countries, poverty works against achieving rights of children and adolescents in Bangladesh. Though many rights based development efforts are currently being taken, rights are not well defined and conceptualized yet; it is a contested discourse. To ensure child and adolescent friendly environment in Bangladesh, it is necessary to coordinate government and NGOs activities through proper conceptualization of the same.