Nelson Mandela said, “The true character of a society is most clearly revealed by how it treats its children.” Today, these words are not merely a quotation for us; rather, they are a brutally honest mirror for self-reflection.
For it is not difficult to imagine how deeply the soul of a society has sunk into darkness when its children carry drugs instead of schoolbags.
Recently in Chattogram, two children, aged 9 and 12, were taken into custody while allegedly attempting to smuggle yaba by carrying it inside their stomachs. Nearly 7,000 yaba tablets were recovered from their bodies.
A criminal gang had exploited these innocent children by tempting them with money. At an age when they should have been in school, their very bodies were turned into vehicles for drug trafficking. Is there any more cruel way to insult and rob a child of their childhood?
This is not an isolated incident. Research conducted by the Department of Narcotics Control has revealed that approximately 25 percent of those involved in transporting and selling drugs in the country are children, most of them under the age of 16.
Another study found that 21 percent of street children are used as drug carriers. That study, conducted among 1,600 street children across the country, also found that 58 percent of them reported using one form of drug or another.
Yet another recent study found significant involvement of children aged 15 or younger in drug sales in the capital, Dhaka. These statistics clearly demonstrate that the expansion of the drug trade is also delivering a direct and devastating blow to the future of our children.
Even the developed world is not free from this danger. However, those countries approach the issue from a different perspective. When children become involved in crime, they do not merely judge the offence itself; they also seriously investigate who exploited the child, how the child was exploited, and why the child was forced into helpless submission to the criminals.
The problem is not viewed simply as “a child’s crime.” Rather, it is understood as “child criminal exploitation”—children becoming victims of exploitation for criminal purposes. Alongside this, coordinated efforts involving the police, education, health, and social-service agencies are undertaken to identify and protect children at risk.
International law is also stronger in this regard. Article 33 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child calls for children to be protected against the illicit use of narcotic drugs and against being used in the production and trafficking of such drugs.
In other words, turning children into tools of crime is not merely a law-and-order issue; it is also a direct violation of children’s fundamental rights. Therefore, while ensuring severe punishment for those who involve children in criminal activities, we must also identify the areas, families, and circumstances in which children are becoming easy targets for criminal gangs.
The Holy Qur’an says: “Protect yourselves and your families from the Fire.” Yet those whom we are supposed to protect are sometimes pushed into this inferno—sometimes because of poverty, sometimes through the lure of money, and sometimes through the schemes of criminal gangs. This is truly the ultimate defeat of our humanity.
We must remember that a child’s little stomach is not a container for drugs; it is a place meant to hold dreams of the future. Putting drugs into those dreams does not merely steal a child’s childhood; it means handing over the future of an entire nation to the darkness. A society capable of committing such a heinous act by exploiting innocent and unsuspecting children is undoubtedly sick and morally corrupted.
As Willy Brandt said, “Every injustice done to children is a disgrace to all humanity.”