THE marked worsening of living conditions for millions of children in Bangladesh over the past six years, as laid bare by the preliminary findings of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2025, comes as a distressing truth. The survey, conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics across 63,000 households between October 2024 and June this year, shows that life has not improved for children, largely because of insufficient policy attention, wavering political willzs and chronic underinvestment in essential services. Indicators relating to children鈥檚 education, health and protection from violence and exploitation point to a steady and deeply worrying deterioration. Child labour has increased from 6.8 per cent in 2019 to 9.2 per cent in 2025, pushing an estimated 12 lakh more children into the workforce and out of the classroom. This increase not only results from growing poverty, it also reflects the state鈥檚 failure to enforce existing laws and policies intended to prevent such exploitation. Violence against children, though marginally reduced, remains appallingly pervasive, with more than 85 per cent of children affected. Education has also suffered distressing setbacks. Although foundational reading and numeracy skills have shown modest gains, the progress is overshadowed by a decline in the net intake rate for primary education.
Out-of-school rates have increased at both primary and higher secondary levels. The survey finds the increased rates to be direct outcome of prolonged school closures during the Covid pandemic and the absence of the necessary interventions that experts have repeatedly urged since then. The absence of targeted interventions has left many unable to return to learning, particularly those from poorer households. Child health indicators have weakened further, with wasting among under-five children having increased from 9.8 per cent to 12.9 per cent. The prevalence of underweight children also remains worryingly high. What is further shocking is that only 35.2 per cent of children aged 6鈥�23 months receive the minimum dietary diversity required for healthy development. Meanwhile, the increase in adolescent births 鈥� from 83 to 92 per 1,000 girls 鈥� underscores a persistent failure to end child marriage and adequate reproductive health services and education for young people. Essential services also present mixed outcomes. While access to sanitation has improved, access to safely managed drinking water has declined, with over 80 per cent of household water samples found to be contaminated with E. coli. All these figures point to an alarming deterioration in living conditions for millions of children and highlight the authorities鈥� failure to ensure quality and healthy life conditions for the younger population.
The government must, therefore, treat the BBS survey as a wake-up call for urgent action as the future of an entire generation is at stake. Policies and laws are already in place; what remains absent is their effective implementation. The government must address these failings with seriousness and resolve.