28-10-2022

FRIdAY, OcTOBER 28, 2022
4
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Friday, October 28, 2022
Drug addiction : A major
national problem
The case of the heinous murders of a police
officer and his wife in 2013 with the
alleged involvement of their drug addicted
young daughter, must have deeply shocked
and pained all normal well meaning people in
the country. Helping in the murdering of one's
own parents has been unthinkable in our society.
But such an act also symbolizes to what
extent degradation has developed in our society
specially from the increase in the number of
users of addictive drugs.
The drug addiction habit has been growing
gradually. It is not a sudden development
under the tenures of one or two governments.
The media has been reporting the record number
of seizures of yaba tablets in recent weeks
and months. The present government was seen
battling the drug addiction challenge with some
dedication and as a result its spread could be
reasonably contained. But surely a great deal
more should be done to address this problem.
A media report-- sometime ago-- based on
information from the Department of Narcotics
Control (DNC), is concern raising. The gist of it
was that there are at least 50 lakh drug users in
Bangladesh who spend taka 50 crore on illegal
narcotics every day and 75 per cent of the users
are between 15 and 30 years of age.
The report is suggestive of the expansion in
the number of addicts. Similar statistics about
a decade ago showed the number of addicts and
their spending on their addiction to be notably
less. That the number of addicts and their
spending have increased to such proportions,
signals that Bangladesh has every reason to be
very concerned by the rising number of drug
users and its consequences for the society as a
whole.
The Chinese in the nineteenth century
were known to be weak and incapable of
resisting foreign aggressors. Among other
reasons, it emerged from the analysis of
historians that their vitality was sapped
from a very large number of China's population
falling prey to smoking opium in
that period. However, opium was introduced
there by foreigners. There is a lesson
for Bangladesh from this historical example.
Great quantities of the illegal drugs
now used in Bangladesh such as Yaba have
a foreign origin. These are smuggled from
across the borders of Myanmar and India.
These also come through sea routes in the
Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh used to be
mainly a conduit used by international
drug traffickers in the past. But now it has
become a lucrative market for users as well.
The youth in Bangladeshare faced with ruination
in many cases from their growing drug
addiction habits. They are gradually getting
crippled mentally and physically. Many of
them are already only shattered forms of their
former healthy selves and are complete liabilities
for their families and societies.
Not only this, they are found in most cases to
rely on crimes like snatching and stealing to
get money to maintain their habits. Others
resort to more serious crimes specially when
parents and others refuse to satisfy their
demand for money to be spent on addiction.
Thus, it is high time to check the drug menace
from turning worse.
Law enforcement activities need to be made
particularly effective and extraordinary efforts
will have to be made to bring to a halt the pushing
of addictive substances inside Bangladesh
as well as making them locally. Our policymakers
must recognize drug addiction as a serious
national problem to be addressed immediately
and very effectively through stepped up and far
greater scrupulous and efficient operations of
law enforcement bodies. However, the most
effective deterrence can be no other than one
forged through much greater awareness building
about the very negative consequences of
addiction, publicity campaigns, role played by
family elders and social leaders to that end.
Inclusive Education of Bangladesh: Problems & prospects
Spread Inclusive Education everywhere & be responsible people with disabilities
Inclusion means
all castes,
religions, races,
gender, abilities
learning working
together.
Inclusion means
educating
children with
disabilities in the
schools they
would attend if they did not have
disabilities. Providing services and
supports those parents and with disabilities
need in order to be in normal
settings.Inclusion is a philosophy build on
the belief that all people are equal should be
respected and valued, as an issue of basic
human rights.The benefits of inclusion are
enough, not only for special needs children
& their families, but also for all children.
When we adjust/include all in average
everything, they know/learn acceptance of
others, & they have absolute abilities. They
learn together from each other.By creating
an inclusive infrastructure it will enable
diversity in the class room with the able &
disable learning together, complimenting
each other's skills. Creating a partnership
with families is an important part of
inclusion.Benefits of inclusion for children
with disabilities are friendship skills, peer
models, problem solving skill, positive self
image & respect for others.On the other
hand community inclusion essential
because it enriches the lives of our family
members; it is stimulating addresses their
need for human interaction. It means to
skill development for potential
employment & daily living.
In a word inclusion can help to overcome
discrimination for children, family &
society. As a result children with needs
return to the mainstream of society. In this
they can contribute to the society.Inclusive
education is carried out in a common
learning environment; that is an
educational setting where students from
different backgrounds and with different
abilities learn together in a inclusive
environment.Inclusive education means
that all students attend and are welcomed
by their neighborhood schools in ageappropriate,
regular class and are
supported to learn, contribute and
participate in all aspects of the life of the
school. Inclusive education is a school
curriculum, environment that is tailored to
the needs of the students prioritizing their
rights.
It is a social/community barrier to
inclusion. Because of our negative attitude
inclusion is hindered at every level of
society, including family, society & the
state. Lack of awareness creates negative
attitudes.It is also a social/community
barrier to inclusion. Because of our
negative attitude inclusion is hindered at
every level of society, including family,
society & the state. On the other hand
negative attitude is a major obstacle in
creating social awareness.Vocational
schools do not have suitable training
systems for the disabled. There are few
vocational schools for them but there is
absolutely no opportunity to take
vocational training together. As a result
their efficiency does not increase as
expected.There is a considerable lack of
proper education, training and workshops
for teachers in our country. As a disabled
children are not getting proper services. In
other words, the services of untrained
teachers are not very useful for children.
Due to lack of flexibility in the curricula,
children with disabilities face various
obstacles in learning in the classroom. Lack
of flexible curricula according to the type of
student is a major obstacle in this field.
Entrance to school and classroom, size of
classroom, toilet, and inadequate seating
space is a hindrance to the education of
children with disabilities. Lack of adequate
space for wheelchair use is a barrier. In
some cases there is no policy & in some
cases there is a policy but it is not
implemented in practice. Here integrated
education is on paper but there is no reality.
Apart from this, the policy is being
hampered in various ways due to lack of
coordination as multiple ministries are
working in this issue.Even though our
country has a mandate for integrated
education, there is a serious shortage of
trained teachers in schools. Not only has
that, these schools also had any
environmental facilities. There is even a
shortage of materials.Decentralization of
inclusive education along with general
education has not been done equally in
Bangladesh. Although there is some
prevalence of inclusive education at the
government & private levels in the capital,
there is no provision of such education in
school at the district & UPZ levels.
Lack of communication among
professionals mainstream teachers,
management, resource staff, doctors &
others paraprofessionals. Professional ego
JInAT nASRIn
clashes. Successful strategies not shared
between teachers. Lack of understanding of
the characteristics of disabilities & its
educational implications. No formal
assessments resulting in loose labeling of
the child.
I think inclusion is not possible without
policy changing. When there is a policy
change, the media will highlight it so that
more people about it. When policies change
positively for people with disabilities,
families of people with disabilities will try
advocate for them, because then he has
evidence.
Inclusion based policy analysis is the
process of bringing into view the sources of
disadvantage that result in unequal
opportunities & outcomes for people with
disabilities, & of using the tools of public
It is a social/community barrier to inclusion. Because
of our negative attitude inclusion is hindered at every
level of society, including family, society & the state. Lack
of awareness creates negative attitudes.It is also a
social/community barrier to inclusion. Because of our
negative attitude inclusion is hindered at every level of
society, including family, society & the state.
WAKU MILLER
policy overcome these disadvantages.
Parents of persons with disabilities are
face emotional financial stress, Lack of
supports, discrimination, loss of social life
and other which result in psychological
problems, depression, and physical
exhaustion. Also in the negative attitude of
people in the society.
Parents can be given the following
support to support inclusion: Raising
awareness about inclusion, To create
awareness about the rights & capabilities
of disabled children, To make people with
disabilities aware of services & make
them easily accessible, Improving
parents-teacher relationships, Helping to
remove barriers to inclusion, Conducting
regular meetings of teachers &
administration with parents regarding
the advantages of persons with
disabilities, Provide income source of
parents, Provision of aids as required,
Bringing disabled child/person under
insurance.
I think the media has an important role to
play in raising awareness about inclusion.
Inclusion is a birth & legal right of every
disabled people. If there were no barriers to
inclusion, people with disabilities could
reflect their abilities & succeed in all fields.
Inclusion can be achieved not only through
legislation, but through concerted & sincere
efforts at all levels.
Reflection of the international &
domestic legislations acts & documents on
other aspects of inclusive education not
enough. The universal declaration of
human Rights was adopted by the U N
general assembly on 10 December, 1948. It
is a milestone document in the history of
human rights. According to this law all
human beings are born free & equal. It has
30 articles. This act has been translated 80
languages. The world conference on special
needs education was held by UNESCO
from 07-10 June.1994. The conference was
held Salamanca in Spain. The conference
on the commitment to ensure education for
all called for inclusion of children, youth &
adults with mainstream education.
Inclusive education is mainly reflected in
this conference. Here quality education is
mentioned. Bangladesh government
signed this declaration so far there is no
reflection of it. Bangladesh only some
policy, laws & action plans are made in this
regard. National policy of Bangladesh on
disability is adopted at 1995. This is first
ever national policy on disability in
Bangladesh. Inclusive education is first
mentioned here. On 10 November 2013
Social welfare Ministry of BD enacted the
Neurodevelopment Disability Protection
Trust Act. In this act establishes education
& training, establishment institutions,
determination selection criteria &
curriculum formulation, inclusion
education system, establishment of special
educational institutions has been
mentioned seriously. Despite existence of
such various international & domestic
legislations, acts & documents, its
implementation in practices in less.
Working on inclusion in the context
of Bangladesh is very difficult.
Recently, work on inclusion has started
in Bangladesh but its pace is very slow.
At present some efforts are being made
to create awareness. Although it is
urban, there is such initiative in the
village. Although there are some
inclusive schools in the cities, there is
no idea about it among the rural.
Hundred obstacles to work on
inclusion in Bangladesh. Ignorance is
the main obstacles. Due to lack of
awareness the social responsibility of
disabled people is neglected. As a
result, obstacles have to be faced in all
areas including education, treatment,
employment & transportation. There is
also considerable lack of information,
education, research & training. Still we
are optimistic. Maybe one day we will
reach certain goals, albeit slowly.
The writer is B A (Hon's) M A (History),
B SEd, M SEd.Sr. Special Educator,
BEAUTIFUL MIND, Uttara, Dhaka.
Kishida flip-flops on banning the Moonies
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida performed an impressive flipflop
last Tuesday, stating that he
might be able to dissolve a religious
corporation after all. The previous day he
had insisted that his government lacked a
basis for initiating procedures to do that.
The religious corporation in question was
the Japanese chapter of the Family
Federation for World Peace and
Unification, generally known as the
Unification Church and widely called the
Moonies in reference to its Korean founder,
the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
Japan's chapter has come under renewed
scrutiny since the fatal shooting of former
prime minister Shinzo Abe on July 8. The
accused shooter, Tetsuya Yamagami, has
told authorities that cult-like pressure from
the group on his mother destroyed their
family and that he shot Abe because of the
latter's connections with the group.
Yamagami's mother reportedly gave
more than 100 million yen (about
US$700,000) to the Family Federation for
World Peace and Unification. And reports
of other donations under questionable
circumstances are multiplying daily.
A hotline set up by the government in
September has received more than 1,700
complaints. The alleged misconduct
includes such acts as foisting statuettes and
other items on members for extravagant
prices in "spiritual sales" and, as with
Yamagami's mother, pressuring followers
to make huge donations.
Kishida was describing his take on
Japan's Religious Corporations Law. That
law entitles the government to revoke a
group's registration as a religious
corporation if the group has harmed the
public welfare grievously.
Courts have traditionally interpreted the
law as predicating the revocation on
criminal infringements of Japan's Penal
Code. And Kishida adhered to that
interpretation on Monday, October 17. He
was responding to a question in a meeting
of the budget committee of the Diet's lower
house. He reversed himself the next day in
a meeting of the upper house budget
committee.
The prime minister attributed the
reversal to "further study" of the law.
Kishida had realized that breaches of the
Civil Code could be sufficient grounds for
revoking a religious-corporation
registration.
Yamagami's perception of Abe as having
close ties with the Family Federation for
World Peace and Unification was well
founded. In the 1960s, Abe's grandfather
Nobusuke Kishi helped nurture the group
in Japan as an ally against communism.
Sun Myung Moon founded the
Unification Church in Seoul in 1954. The
group began operating in Japan about five
years later and received Japanese
certification as a religious corporation in
1964. Its present appellation dates from a
name change in 2015.
Kishi, an accused but unconvicted war
criminal, served as prime minister from
1957 to 1960. He later hosted the
Unification Church's Japanese
headquarters in a building next to his home
in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, a building that
had served as his official prime minister's
residence when he was in office.
In 1968, Moon launched the
International Federation for Victory over
Communism in the Republic of Korea and,
as the Kokusai Shokyo Rengo, in Japan.
The Japanese chairman was Osami
Kuboki, the head of the Japanese branch of
the Unification Church, and the honorary
chairman was Ryoichi Sasakawa, an ultrarightist
industrialist and former politician.
Sasakawa, like Kishi, was an accused but
ultimately unconvicted war criminal and
had been a co-occupant of Tokyo's Sugamo
Prison.
A hotline set up by the government in September
has received more than 1,700 complaints. The alleged
misconduct includes such acts as foisting statuettes
and other items on members for extravagant prices
in "spiritual sales" and, as with Yamagami's mother,
pressuring followers to make huge donations.
Kishi died in August 1987 at the age of 90,
and his son-in-law, Shintaro Abe, inherited
Kishi's role as the main interface between
Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party
(LDP) and the Unification Church. Abe
headed the Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyu Kai
(Seiwa Kai) faction in the LDP. According
to several lawmakers interviewed by the
Asahi Shimbun newspaper, he encouraged
lawmakers to accept Unification Church
support.
Shintaro Abe's son Shinzo followed him
into politics two years after his death by
winning a lower house seat in Yamaguchi
prefecture. Shinzo joined and later headed
the Seiwa Kai faction.
Like his father, he inherited the role of
LDP-Unification Church interface. Shinzo
fulfilled that role faithfully. He coordinated
support from the group for LDP
candidates, as noted, and dispatched
congratulatory messages to group
gatherings by telegram and by prerecorded
video. He appeared several times
on the cover of the Kokusai Shokyo Rengo
magazine Sekai Shiso.
Two days before the July 10, 2022, upper
house election, he was dead.
The positioning of the Family Federation
for World Peace and Unification in the
motivation of Abe's alleged killer set off a
media frenzy. Investigations by news media
and by the political parties themselves soon
outed more than 100 politicians, most of
them members of the LDP, as having ties
with the group.
Among the tainted politicians were
numerous present and past government
ministers, including former prime
ministers. That raised the question as to
what sort of quid pro quo was in play
between the LDP and the Family
Federation for World Peace and
Unification.
Media estimates of the votes cast by
member of the group range from 70,000 to
150,000. Those figures pale in comparison
with the votes wielded by another religious
group, Soka Gakkai, in recent elections. The
quasi-Buddhist Soka Gakkai claims a
membership of 8,270,000 households in
Japan, and its political arm, the Komeito
party, is the junior partner to the LDP in the
ruling coalition.
Waku Miller is a Tokyo-based writer
and translator. He is active in efforts to
end the Japanese practice of "hostage
justice," holding people accused of
crimes in extended confinement before
they have received verdicts