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Forced labor
被强迫的劳工
Many boys in Bangladesh were put to work during the pandemic.
在疫情期间，孟加拉国有许多男孩被派去工作。
School is resuming without them.
学校正在恢复上课，他们没有回到学校。
By the time the sun sinks over the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, Rekha is struggling to sit still.
当太阳落在孟加拉国首都达卡的上空时，瑞卡正努力坐着不动。
Twisting her plastic bangles, the 34-year-old mother of two checks her phone to make sure she hasn’t missed a call from her 12-year-old son, who was due home 30 minutes earlier.
这位34岁的两个孩子的母亲扭动着塑料手镯，检查着手机，确保自己没有错过12岁儿子的电话。儿子本该30分钟前到家的。
Rekha wanders outside to peer through the front gate, anxiety sketched all over her face.
瑞卡在外面徘徊，从前门向外张望，脸上满是焦虑。
“This job is too dangerous,” she says, frowning.
“这份工作太危险了，”她皱着眉头说。
“Every morning I say goodbye and I pray, ‘Please Allah, send him home tonight.’”
“每天早上我都会说再见，然后祈祷，'请真主，今晚送他回家。“
Rekha has cause to worry.
瑞卡的担心并不是多余的。
In the 18 months since her elder son Rafi started work in a local glass factory, he’s returned home bruised and bleeding more than once.
自从她的大儿子拉菲开始在当地的一家玻璃厂工作以来的18个月里，他不止一次带着淤青和流血回家。
One afternoon, he severed the soft skin of his palm with a sharp blade intended to slice a window pane.
一天下午，他用一把锋利的刀片割破了自己手心柔软的皮肤，他本想用这把刀割开一块窗玻璃。
As blood soaked the child’s T-shirt, he was rushed to the emergency room by his employer—but nobody called Rekha to let her know.
由于血浸透了孩子的T恤，他的老板急忙把他送到了急诊室——但是没有人打电话告诉瑞卡。
“I feel bad inside, like I am a bad mother,” she says. “I know Rafi doesn’t want to work. He wants to be at school.”
她说:“我心里很难受，就好像我是一个坏母亲。” “我知道拉菲不想工作。 他想上学。”
When authorities first shuttered Bangladesh’s schools in March 2020, nobody could have anticipated they would remain closed for the following 18 months, in what would go on to become one of the most restrictive school closures in the world.
在当局于2020年3月首次关闭孟加拉国的学校时，没有人能预料到它们会在接下来的18个月内继续关闭，这将成为世界上关闭管控措施最严格的学校。
Classes returned on a rotating schedule in September 2021, but schools were closed for four weeks over January and February amid a COVID-19 surge driven by the Omicron variant.
2021年9月，学校按轮换时间表恢复上课，但由于奥米克戎变种导致冠状病毒疾病激增，学校在1月和2月停课四周。
Now, two years on from the first lockdown, child-rights advocates say tens of thousands of pupils across the country have not returned to school.
现在，距离第一次封校已经过去两年了，儿童权利倡导者说，全国各地成千上万的学生还没有回到学校。
The majority, they say, are boys ages 12 and older who were pushed into full-time work during the interim.
他们说，他们大多数是12岁及以上的男孩，在过渡期间被迫从事全职工作。
Rafi was once one of more than 1,100 students ages 5 to 17 who attended Shantipur High School in Dhaka until the government imposed its nationwide lockdown in March 2020.
在政府于2020年3月实施全国封锁之前，拉菲曾是1100多名5至17岁学生中的一员，他们就读于达卡的尚蒂普尔高中。
In September 2021, the school’s staff heaved open the metal gates that face a busy street in central Dhaka and waited;
2021年9月，学校工作人员推开达卡市中心一条繁忙街道的金属大门，等待着；
teachers poised in pressed shirts and blazers waited for them to return, blackboards still damp from a sponge.
老师们穿着熨烫过的衬衫和运动夹克，等待着他们回来，用海绵擦过的黑板还没干。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
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