The world’s first dedicated Bangla news website for children, ‘Hello’, organised the discussion, the Rohingya Children Under Threat, on Sunday at Royal Tulip Sea Pearl Beach Resort in Cox’s Bazar ahead of the Universal Children’s Day with support from UN children’s agency UNICEF.
bdnews24.com Editor-in-Chief Toufique Imrose Khalidi moderated the event. UNICEF spokesperson AM Sakil Faizullah joined the discussion.
Twenty child journalists made up the panellists who discussed the plight of the 300,000 Rohingya children who have fled persecution in Myanmar and taken shelter in Bangladesh, and how to improve their situation.
They also reported on the situation in the refugee camps, the challenges faced by these children, and the steps the government and international organisations need to take to overcome the crisis.
The group visited Cox’s Bazar’s Balukhali and Kutupalong refugee camps on Saturday to see first-hand the situation Rohingya children had been enduring. They also recorded their words and filmed their hardship.
“The number is a bit higher, according to the Government of Bangladesh. UNICEF says 60 percent of this population are children. And the number of children who lost their lives while fleeing isn’t small either,” he said.
He said on the Universal Children’s Day on Monday, children would be in charge of the UN and its wing for children, UNICEF, would take similar steps.
“You will also be at our (bdnews24.com’s) newsroom. You’ll see a separate desk for you when you go to Dhaka,” he said.
Khalidi asked the child journalists what they would do if they also got the charge of the Rohingya camps on Monday.
“I saw there is no one to take care of the pregnant women, her food or nutrition. I visited many of the shelters,” she said.
“The women don’t want to come to collect food out of shame.
“I would have taken the foods to the shelters if I were part of the management,” she added.
Cox’s Bazar Government High School student Saidul Islam said he noticed children doing adults’ jobs, like queuing to collect relief materials or carrying water to their shelter.
He said they were not working for money, but these jobs were hard for them.
Saidul suggested raising awareness among the Rohingya parents so that they do not send their children to such tasks.
“I’ve seen how the children carry heavy loads even though their fathers are there. I would have tried to stop child labour there,” he said.
The child journalists said many of the refugee families with more than one adult male members were collecting relief materials several times a day while many other families did not get aid as they did not have an adult member in the family.
Jannatul Nayeem Zerin said at the discussion that this mismanagement in distributing relief materials needs to be stopped immediately to improve the conditions of the Rohingya children in the camps.
Recounting her visit to the camps, she said a system to identify the families by their shelter number was already there. “Using this number and marking it during relief distribution can improve the situation.”
Zerin said no family would be able to collect relief materials two or three times a day if the identity cards were used to distribute the aid.
It would also be possible to give relief to the families that have no adult member to collect the materials.
They are also at risk of water-borne diseases due to a lack of drinking water.
Child journalist Nawrin Huda Omi recounted her experience about water and sanitation at the camps.
Asked by Khalidi about the steps taken to stop water-borne diseases, UNICEF’s Sakil said it was difficult to supply nine million litres of drinking water needed daily for the huge population at the camps.
According to him, 38 percent toilets set up at the camps at the beginning of the exodus around three months ago became unusable after being used by the huge numbers of Rohingya refugees.
“But,” he added, “There is also some success – we have been able to carry out the world’s second largest cholera vaccination of 700,000 people in a month here.”
At the discussion, they brought up the information they collected on these issues at the camps.
Starting its journey on Mar 31, 2013, hello.bdnews24.com is providing news stories on children by the children at all the levels from gathering to publication.
Under the supervision of experienced journalists of bdnews24.com, the trained child journalists are contributing to the mainstream media.