Maid, 11, accuses cricket star of abuse: 'They used to beat me with sticks'-- Demi Tomsides

Mahfuza Akhter, "Happy", is an eleven year old girl that was the live in maid for cricket hero, Shahadat Hossain and his wife, Nritto Shahadat. Happy claims that she was abused by her former employers and that "They used to beat me with sticks, kitchen utensils, punch me, and scratch me. I would be slapped a lot,". Happy lived with her impoverished extended family. Since they often couldn't find a next meal, her grandmother sent her to work for this family. Happy would be locked in her room, forced to sleep in the bathroom, and given the scraps of spoiled food. She decided that she would rather beg on the streets than live in that house, so when the other maid was coming in Happy made a run for it. She was slow, limping, and trying to cover her hurting, swollen eye while she ran down the streets of Dhaka. When she stopped to rest, a local reporter found her and took her to the hospital. She was admitted with two swollen eyes, several dislocated body parts, and extensive bruises. The celebrity couple (who many used call a hero) was captured and sent to jail. The wife is on bail on humanitarian grounds (the irony) because she's going to have a baby. Many believe this trial is going down as one of the biggest celebrity trials in the country's history.

This was a disturbing article, but one that ended on a slightly hopeful note of Happy finally getting to be just that: happy. She was sent to a shelter and has made some friends. But taking it back a couple steps, this whole situation is absolutely horrendous. In 2006 Bangladesh's Labor Act forbade employing a child under the age of 14, but unfortunately looking in a home and finding an young girl is more common than not. One of the most influential books of all time has been A Chirstmas Carol by Charles Dickens. We know the story today to be a nice holiday tale about a cranky miser who is visited by three ghosts, and in the end is miraculously transformed into a "God bless us everyone" kind of guy. But in the time that the book was published, it was a political statement that challenged the current political ideals, especially of that revolving around child labor. Children working awful conditions for cheap labor was a problem back then (in the Industrial Revolution) and it is still a problem today. We all need to be aware of the problem and help the world fix it.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/10/asia/bangladesh-maid-abuse-child-labor/?iid=ob_homepage_deskrecommended_pool&iref=obinsite