Children’s Rights Week 2012 began on Monday with the theme ‘from womb to five: care me from today: to become intelligent and powerful’.
Government and different non-governmental organisations have taken up various programmes to mark the week.
The ministry of women and children affairs inaugurated their weeklong programmes at Natyashala of the Shilpakala Academy in the capital.
Addressing the programme, health and family welfare minister AFM Ruhul Haque said very soon the government would launch diarrhoea and pneumonia vaccine which would help to reduce child death rate of the country.
Women and children affairs state minister Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury, secretary Tariq-Ul-Islam, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the women and children affairs ministry Meher Afroz Chumki and Unicef Bangladesh country representative Pascal Villeneuve also spoke at the programme.
Aparajeya Bangladesh, working for underprivileged children, brought out a procession from Matsya Bhaban as part of their celebration of the week.
The procession, attended by several hundred children, ended on the Shishu Academy premises.
Information minister Hasanul Haque Inu inaugurated the procession and called upon all to work together to ensure the rights of children.
NGO-Affairs Bureau director general Nurunnabi Talukder, Aparajeya Bangladesh chairperson Mahfuza Khanam and executive director Wahida Banu also spoke during the programme.
They urged the government to take initiatives to stop child labour and violence against children.
To mark the week, Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association also brought out a procession from its office and it ended at Dhaka University Teacher-Student Centre.
Kendriya Khelaghar Asar and Bangladesh Council for Child Welfare also held separate rallies in front of the National Press Club where child rights activists demanded full implementation of the UN Convention on Rights of the Child, which Bangladesh signed in 1974 and ratified in 1990.
They also demanded adequate playgrounds and child-friendly environment for them.