14th February, 2019. News of Child Molestration turned into a regular figure. This situation made me worried and first I felt that I should do something to save children from this kind of incident. Then we, Naorin Amina, Raihanul Haque, Rulul Amin, Abdul Momen & Nayem Islam decided to start an Organization nemed ‘’The 6th Sense’’ for raising awareness about Child Sexual Abuse, when many of our friends were joining different Organizations just because they had to add volunteering activities in their CV for getting a good job. We hadn’t any idea about establishing an Organization. But we did! That’s our story!
Child Sexual Abuse is a severe problem in Bangladesh. Thousands of children are abused every year. The child sexual abuse is an under-reported offence in Bangladesh, which has reached epidemic proportion. The effects of child sexual abuse include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, propensity to further victimization in adulthood, and physical injury to the child, among other problems. Sexual abuse by a family member is a form of incest and can result in more serious and long-term psychological trauma, especially in the case of parental incest. Primary Sex Education will make our kids sensible & aware about molestation. By making them conscious, we may prevent the Pedophiles and ensure ‘Secured childhood‘ for our kids.
‘The 6th Sense‘ is a non-profit volunteering Organization. This Organization provides Reproductive and Sexuality Education for 5-16 yrs/of School going children through workshops. The name of our First project is ‘Seeking Safe Childhood‘. We teach the children to differentiate ‘GOOD & BAD TOUCH‘, Inform about Private Body Parts & Personal Safety. We Conduct Surveys to know how many are abused & Provide Free Counselling for Traumatized kids & help to take legal steps against the offenders.
We have started our project in the Rajshahi Area. Now, we are increasing our Branch to spread our workshop outside, Rajshahi and all over Bangladesh. Recently we have opened two New Branches at Noakhali & Tangail Area. We have planned that we will make Branch of ‘The 6th Sense’ in all of our Public, Private & National Universities. Then we will train them for workshops, surveys & Counselling. They will work in their local areas. By doing this we can spread our message to the children in a short period of time. We wish to cover all of the Primary schools including Government, non-government even Street schools.
Yet we have done workshops in 50 ‘Primary Schools’ with more than 14 thousands children. We conducted our surveys on 3 thousands children aged 9-12 where we’ve found 30%-40% survivors. Alarming thing is that the ratio between abused girls and boys is almost the same. 35-40 percent of them were male and 60-65% were female. 90-95% incidents were left untold to their parents because 80% of abusers were close to their family. An important thing is the abusers are both male and female.
We have more than one hundred volunteers working for this project. Hope, after 5-10 years, the abuser & pedophiles will be scared to touch a child inappropriately or to molest. People will be aware of the diseases about Pedophilia and take proper treatment. Consciousness will spread all over the country. Our kids will be secure & get a Safe Childhood which they actually deserve.
Besides, our teenagers are facing different challenges during their Puberty, especially girls. They need quality education about reproductive health and hygiene as well as Relationships. Focusing on this issue, we have designed our second project named ”Seeking safe Adolescence”. Hope we will launch our second project after coping with this COVID-19 Pandemic.
After conducting our project for 5 years, we will operate a movement for ‘Compulsory Sexuality Education’ in Bangladesh. Hope, we’ll be successful in our mission.
