While work continues on many fronts to combat child sexual abuse, the unfortunate reality on the ground is that on average, three children are being raped in Bangladesh each day, according to statistics of the Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum.

“Bring out Adnan*!” the social worker in charge of the government orphanage instructed an attendant. A woman sitting across the desk from her, shifted in her seat.

The #metoo movement and the recent sharing of numerous stories of sexual abuse in Bangladesh and across the world have brought home to us what we already knew – that women and girls (men and boys too, but mostly women and girls) are commonly subjected to various forms of sexual abuse throughout their lives.

Physical signs of sexual abuse

For children on the streets, exploitation, abuse, and neglect is just an everyday affair. And overlooking them, is a part of our everyday affair.

By the time she was a young adult, she had started to show the first signs of anxiety, rebellion (cue the dating older men, being too ready, almost too eager to be in bed with them), then not wanting to have sex altogether in adulthood, going from straight As to straight fails—she carried these childhood struggles through adulthood.

Play is an integral companion of childhood. Little brains grow with the help of their play time, learning colours and creativity, allowing children to better understand themselves and their world.