This book presents a study of street children's involvement as workers in Bangladeshi organised crime groups based on a three-year ethnographic study in Dhaka. The book argues that 'mastaans' are Bangladeshi mafia groups that operate in a market for crime, violence and social protection. It considers the crimes mastaans commit, the ways they divide labour, and how and why street children become involved in these groups. The book explores how street children are hired by 'mastaans', to carry weapons, sell drugs, collect extortion money, commit political violence and conduct contract killings. The book argues that these young people are neither victims nor offenders; they are instead 'illicit child labourers', doing what they can to survive on the streets. This book adds to the emerging fields of the sociology of crime and deviance in South Asia and 'Southern criminology'.
"This book is a very important contribution to organized crime research as well as development of southern criminology. This book is also a valuable reference for researchers and practitioners who work on issues pertaining to child protection. Ethnographic fieldwork to a foreign country is exciting, yet always fraught with challenges and uncertainties. Reading this book, I can see Sally Atkinson-Sheppard's devotion to research on hard-to-reach population in an impoverished Asian country." (Weidi Liu, Asian Journal of Criminology, Vol. 17, May 20, 22)