The UK Independent is now crying foul at prostitution in Bangladesh. Johann Hari writes about his own forays into Bangladeshi prostitution rings and what he claims to have found there. As his rambling and drawn out report proceeds, we are convinced that Hari is writing more about himself and less about the unfortunate in Bangladesh. When he speaks of Ishtiaque Ahmed’s NGO, Aparajeyo (The Undefeated), Hari laments the intellectual’s jargon laden speech; diluting the tremendous work that grassroots workers like Ahmed do for the down trodden. Earlier when he reports his interviews with a vagrant boy in Dhaka, he waxes eloquent about his inabilities to help the poor kid all the while undermining the trouble that besieges Bangladeshi youth. One is thankful to the Bangladeshi Government that Hari was not allowed to visit a government run children’s home. Then we would have had to read another piece of badly written diatribe.
We do know that prostitution of both boys and girls is on the rise worldwide. We do know that more and more children are being victimized by the children’s mafia in underdeveloped nations. And we know that partly because of the internet, sexual crimes are on the rise. So what are the real causes of the present dismal scenario in Bangladesh?
Firstly, we have to understand that Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world and her poverty is a product of Western imperialism which first robbed the nation and then severed it from the larger and economically stronger India. Secondly, the present day poverty of Bangladesh is reinforced by the non-cancellation of debts by the Third World. A report like this one only goes to assure the Western reader that things are so very bad in a Muslim country and all said and done, the West is deeply concerned about the evil that plagues underdeveloped nations. No one notices that the likes of Hari treat these human disasters as stories for neo-colonial consumption and self-aggrandizement. There is no hope for the Bangladeshi prostitute till the underlying economic causes of Bangladesh are addressed.
Source: Independent
