Lamia Akhter, a resident of Gazipara village in Jamalpur’s Bakshiganj, was busy cooking for her three-year-old son, Mahidul Gazi. Tragically, it was a meal he would never eat. Unnoticed by his family, the toddler wandered off to a nearby beel (wetland) and drowned.
A similar tragedy struck one-and-a-half-year-old Yamin in the district’s Madarganj. While his mother was occupied with cooking, Yamin was playing in the yard. He accidentally fell into a water-filled hole dug for household chores and drowned.
These heartbreaking incidents occur daily. While many child drownings in rural areas go unrecorded, the numbers reported in the media remain staggering.
Just this past Tuesday morning, reports emerged of two more child drownings in Natore and Magura, alongside the tragedies in Jamalpur.
According to the 2024 National Health and Injury Survey, drowning claims more than 50 lives daily in Bangladesh. The vast majority are children who wander into nearby water bodies while adults are momentarily distracted.
Over 11,000 children drown in Bangladesh every year. In this land of rivers, canals, and ponds, the country suffers from the second-highest mortality rate from drowning in South Asia.
Despite the staggering death toll, the issue receives little national attention, and long-term prevention efforts remain in limbo.
A government-run project that established childcare centres to prevent such accidents has been suspended since last December.
While talks have begun regarding a second phase, no final decision or visible progress has been made, leaving field-level services at a complete standstill.
Statistics reveal that drowning has become a leading cause of death for toddlers, with children aged 1 to 4 being the most vulnerable.
Most incidents occur between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM, a critical window when parents are often preoccupied with household chores. Most of these accidents happen in ponds, lakes, or small bodies of water just steps from the family home.
This crisis is heavily driven by socio-economic realities. Children living in rural communities, low-income households, and flood-prone regions face the highest risk.
However, data from the National Health and Injury Survey underscores that these deaths are largely preventable.
In areas where community-based childcare centres operated, the risk of child drowning plummeted by 70 to 80 per cent.
The government-run Integrated Community-Based Childcare project was central to this success.
In areas with community-based daycare centers, the risk of child drowning deaths dropped by 70 to 80 percent. In fact, the Saving Lives from Drowning (SOLID) project, led by Johns Hopkins University, found that community oversee can reduce drowning deaths among children under five by up to 88 per cent.
The government-run Integrated Community-Based Childcare (ICBC) project played a key role in scaling this solution. Officially launched in June 2022, the project was implemented by the Bangladesh Shishu Academy under the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs.
The project model was simple yet highly effective. Each center provided safe supervision for children aged 1 to 5 years from 9AM to 1PM, the most vulnerable hours of the day when mothers are typically occupied with household chores or earning a living.
Furthermore, the financial footprint was minimal: the annual cost per child was only Tk 1,700 to Tk 2,000, making it exceptionally affordable by any public health intervention standard.
Ultimately, the project placed nearly 200,000 children into safe care across more than 8,000 centers in 16 districts. Additionally, over 350,000 children aged 6 to 10 received survival swimming lessons.
Approximately 80 per cent of the project’s direct funding was provided by the government.
“Beyond protecting children, the 8,040 centres also generated employment for 16,080 women,” Mohammad Rizwanul Haque, Senior Programme Officer at Synergos Bangladesh, an organisation partnered with the project, told TIMES of Bangladesh. “Now, that project has been shut down.”
Haque added that despite the official closure, local communities have rallied to keep about 2,000 of these centres running on their own.
Mir Masruruzzaman, executive director of the consortium of partner organisations, emphasised the urgency of reviving the initiative. “Because this project directly impacts the lives and safety of children, we desperately hope it will be restarted.”
There is, however, some bureaucratic movement.
Arju Ara Begum, director general of the Bangladesh Shishu Academy, confirmed that the approval process for the project’s next phase is currently underway.
She noted that the new plan will place a stronger emphasis on community awareness campaigns to prevent future tragedies.
Arju Ara said preventing these tragedies requires a collective effort, emphasising that society and parents must step up alongside government initiatives.
Mymensingh’s Bhaluka upazila was among the areas where the initial project was active. Fakhr Uddin Ahmed Bachchu, the Member of Parliament for the constituency, told TIMES that progress is on the horizon.
“A new development project proposal has been drafted for the second phase and is currently under scrutiny,” he said. “If everything goes according to plan, the project could restart by this coming June or July.”
Esha Hussain, country director of Synergos Bangladesh, noted that administrative transitions following the recent elections had delayed the second phase.
However, she reassured that “the new team has taken charge and is working to fast-track implementation.”
Esha revealed that while the government funded approximately 80 per cent of the first phase, the new proposal aims to scale up the initiative significantly, expanding from 16 to 30 districts. It aims to provide swimming training to more than 5,50,000 children and early childhood development support to 3,50,000 others.
Beyond preventing drownings, she believes these community centers can serve a dual purpose by closely monitoring early childhood vaccination programs.
The urgency of reviving the project was underscored in a March report by the Samiti and Global Health Advocacy Incubator.
The study emphasised that drowning is not merely a series of tragic accidents, but a preventable public health crisis. The report concluded that with sustainable government funding, thousands of young lives could be saved every year.
