Special attention needed to save children from drowning during Eid: NADP

National Alliance for Drowning Prevention (NADP) has made a wake-up call to stay vigilant in order to keep children safe from drowning.

A special press conference was organised on Wednesday to warn countrymen who are set to celebrate the country's biggest religious holiday Eid-ul-Fitr next week, when people usually move to their home towns and visit tourist spots for leisure and recreation.

According to a 2016 survey by Bangladesh Health and Injury Survey (BHIS), the drowning mortality rate is 11.7 per 100,000 people per year, resulting in a total of 19,247 deaths with children accounting for two-thirds of those killed.  

Every day, 30 under-five children drown, which accelerates on such occasions if the parents do not stay vigilant leaving their children unsupervised, NADP observed.

Referring to the study finding that 68% of drowning incidents occur between 9am and 1pm - with the majority of incidents occurring in ponds (66%) and ditches (16%) located nearest to households - when the parents particularly the mothers remain busy with household works, NADP convener Sadrul Mazumder said that most of the children remain unsupervised during this period and in our country, we are yet to develop institutional supervision for children at the national scale.

During holidays, when people visit their native homes and different tourist locations, children habituated with the urban lifestyle are the most vulnerable as they rarely have practical experiences of the rural setting and mostly do not have swimming skills.

"In such circumstances when they roam around unsupervised, they become exposed to the heightened risks of drowning for which they required constant supervision," he added.

Sadrul Mazumder, at the time, urged the concerned government agencies to install efficient lifeguard services to ensure the safety of the tourists in popular tourist spots like Coxes Bazar, Saint Martin's Island, and Kuakata.

BSMMU former professor of medicine and Secretary General of NADP Dr Md Abdul Jalil Chowdhury said that drowning is preventable but the rate of drowning cannot be reduced until the mass people do not become aware of the adversity of drowning. 

Talking about the psychological impact of drowning Professor Jalil Chowdhury said, "If a single child of a family drowns then other members of the family enter into a traumatic situation, which needs to be addressed. Thus alongside the festivity, the senior members of the family should stay vigilant all the time."

"The rate of female child drowning is lower compared to male children," Gender & Women Rights Activist and NADP Adviser Selina Ahmed Ena noted adding that female members of the household, especially mothers, face cruelty from other family members in such cases.

She further mentioned that it is worth understanding that the implementation of drowning prevention interventions has created scope for women's social and economic empowerment through their engagement in the implementation of the interventions such as running the daycare facilities and transferring lifesaving skills like swimming.