A group of children has been working to protect their friends and other children from any kind of abuses. When a friend or a child falls in a problem, the group goes forward to solve the problem or to help them. The name of the group is National Children’s Task Force (NCTF). Flash back Bangladesh government signed up an agreement in first global conference against child sex abuse at Sweden in 1996. According to the agreement Bangladesh prepared a five year plan to protect children from sexual abuses and trafficking and submitted it at second conference at Japan in 2001. The government met with different children groups before making the framework for the conference. A recommendation to form an independent task force led by children came from the meetings with the children. In 2003, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, UNICEF and former Save the Children, Australia jointly organised a child conference at Manikganj and invited 169 children across the country. The children made a frame work to form their task force named Jatiya Shishu Task Force (National Children Task Force). They formed a core committee with 20 elected children. Shahidul Islam Shanto from Tangail was elected as maiden president of the NCTF. Shanto told The Daily Observer that the NCTF is one and only child rights advocacy organisation in the country that practises democracy among children, which helps them to expose their inner leadership. The conference The NCTF organises its central conference biannually. This year the conference was held on June 27-30 at a local training centre in Savar. The four-day long conference brought the whole Bangladesh under a roof. The elected presidents of district level executive bodies took part in the conference. It was like a camp where they practised discipline. Asma Akhter from Rajshahi said, “When we came to the conference, we realised that early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy and wise”. “The main objective of the youth conference this year was electing a central body to execute nationwide programme and finalising the draft constitution,” said former central president Faez Belal. What they do There are three wings of the NCTF– NCTF Research, NCTF Social Media and NCTF Advocacy. NCTF Research group, consisting two elected child researchers from each district, work as civil society. They keep watch on schools, families and hospitals around them. They take notes from their friends and other children regarding child participation in family affairs, school facilities and child healthcare in hospitals. The child researchers write stories or draw pictures on the facts and send those to central committee. NCTF social media publishes newsletters from district level and monitors local and national newspapers. There are two elected child journalists in each of 64 districts. The newsletters focus on local child issues. The social media highlights child related news and send the newspaper cuttings to central committee. The central committee compiles the data received from the NCTF Research and Social Media. The compiled report is titled as Amader Golpo (our stories). The NCTF publishes the story book twice a year and sends it to the United Nations (UN) as an alternative report on United Nations’ Convention on Right of the Child (UNCRC). The NCTF Advocacy is known as Child Parliament. The parliament places the children’s recommendations to law makers. The parliament has 128 members elected from 64 districts. Achievements The NCTF has a lot of success stories at district level such as protecting girls from early marriage, moving against corporal punishment, monitoring school facilities and so on. In 2012, the government included the NCTF district level presidents in District Child Rights Forum. As a result, they can take part in deputy commissioner led district woman and child affairs meeting. The findings of the NCTF’s monthly meeting are submitted in the meeting with the district administration. Next plan The NCTF Central General Secretary Renesa Alam expressed their vision saying, “The NCTF will expand their activities at upazila and union level within a very short time and then we will be able to raise our voices more loudly.”
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