Child labour in Bangladesh

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source : New Nation Online Edition
Thu, 25 Nov 2004

Child labour is not a new issue in Bangladesh as children remain here one of the most vulnerable groups living under threats of hunger, illiteracy, displacement, exploitation, trafficking, physical and mental abuse. The survey, conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, found that roughly one in 17 children, or 17.5 percent of total children of the 5-17 age group, was engaged in economic activities in 2002-03. There are about 42.4 million children of this age group in the country and 22.7 million of them are boys and 19.7 million are girls. Agricultural sector employed about 56 percent of total child workers, which was estimated at 7.6 million. Production and transport sector engaged 25.4 percent of them while 14 percent were sales workers. The highest proportion of working children, some 49.5 percent, were engaged in unpaid economic activities in family farms or business. The second highest 28.6 percent were employed as paid day-labourers. These children are found engaged in household service and other activities.In Bangladesh 67 percent of children work due to financial hardship, either to contribute labour for wages to supplement household incomes or to work at home so that adults can work outside. Nearly 70 percent of urban children of our country work outside of their family enterprises.Many of these children are engaged in various hazardous occupations in manufacturing factories. Urban working children which was estimated 2.5 million, are found mostly in the formal working sector where they are often subjected to exploitative working conditions as well as physical and mental abuse. They are compelled to work for long working hours with inadequate or no rest period. Moreover, they are paid with minimum wages and enjoy no job security. Many people prefer to emplay young boys to get maximum services paying them minimum wages.More than six million children of the 5-14 age group are reportedly engaged in various kinds of economic activities in Bangladesh. These children are working in manufacturing factories, engineering workshops, tanneries, construction sector, transport sector, beedi factories, restaurants and tea-stalls, maids and domestic servants and also in agricultural sector. According to USAID, the children of Bangladesh are engaged in over 300 different types of activities of which 49 are considered harmful to their physical and mental well-being. Intolerable forms of child labour as categorised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) are hazardous occupations, slavery and near slavery, domestic services and sexual abuse. A UNICEF report said that some 40 industries in the country have been using child labour, where their jobs are highly hazardous and dangerous with little regard for health and safety. They employ young boys in their industries to have maximum services with minimum wages.Child labour is a harsh reality in Bangladesh. Children under compulsion are engaged in highly hazardous jobs and also work under most unhygienic conditions. Any one visiting the ship-breaking yard at Sitakunda in Chittagong, will find that thousands of workers including many young children are working in a very dangerous condition. The child workers, many of whom as young as 10 years old, are working in ship breaking industry without any safety, which is horrific for them. According to Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS), nearly two thousand child workers of the 10-14 age group are working in the ship breaking industries. Although most of these child workers work as helpers, as reported by their employers, the real situation is quite different. It is learnt that many of these child workers are compelled to carry heavy iron sheets on their shoulders. But a child worker is paid Tk 60 only for eight hours of work a day while an adult worker is paid between Tk 140 and 180 on an average.Child labour also goes on highly hazardously at Dublar Char under the Sharankhola Range in east Sundarban Division, in gross violation of not only the Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) but also the basic human rights.A newspaper report said that several hundred young boys are undergoing forced labour at fish drying enterprises at Dublar Char. Brokers, who are popularly called majhi (boatman), supply the fish-drying farms with boys, mostly in their teens, from the southern districts of the country. In some cases, the boys are also captured from other regions who are forced to work against their will.The owners of the fish-drying farms seldom pay the child labourers their due wages. A major portion of the amount, whatever they get as remuneration of their hard labour of day-night, are taken by the sardar (supervisor) under whom they have to work. If the boys fail to work as per the will of the sardar, they undergo severe physical torture. The child labourers are forced to do non-stop work to separate fish from the nets, standing in the saline water for hours together. They also carry the fishes from the trawlers to the farms, which are not at all suitable for their age. The boys of poor families are easy prey to the brokers, who pay a small amount to their families in advance and also promise good salary and suitable working condition. But the boys find the real situation quite different from what the brokers had told them. The captive child labourers are also given inadequate food and there are no bed for them to sleep. The coast guard in collaboration with Forest Department and Police, rescued some child labourers from captivity recently.Tanneries and other chemical factories also use child labour. Tannery and chemical factory owners prefer to employ children as they could pay them less and also able to keep their factories free from trade unionism. A child labour gets Taka 700 to 1000 per month, while an adult worker earns upto Taka 5000 per month. The child workers have to come in close contact with chemicals like sulphuric acid, sodium sulphide and chromium while working in the tanneries. The contamination from these chemicals cause fever, cough, headache, gastric, skin diseases and other diseases to the workers, especially the children. The ILO under its International programme of Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has identified 447 child workers under 15 working in 130 tanneries in Dhaka's Hazaribagh area and providing them non-formal education and training, so that they could quit the tanneries.The children, who are working at match factories, construction sites, bidi factories and houses, are the worst sufferers in terms of working conditions, wages, physical and mental pressure, hygiene and abuse. The largest sector of child labourers in the country are the domestic helps. Almost all houses in the cities and towns employ small children as maids and boy servants. The proportion of child domestic workers in Bangladesh under the age of ten is 24 percent.An estimated number of three lac child domestic workers work in different houses of Dhaka city. Our society considers this form of labour as less harmful to children from poor families than other forms. This may be true if they are placed in a good home where the child is treated mercifully but, if unlucky, the child could be just as easily subjected to severe abuse.Child labour is the most severe form of child abuse and exploitation in our country. Bangladesh accounts for less than two percent of the world population. But this is the home to more than five percent of world's working child population numbering 120 million. Childhood is a period when children go to schools with books in their hands. But the ill-fated children of our country are being forced to give labour inhumanly only for the survival and financial help to the family members. Moreover, a section of unscrupulous people in the money-dominated society are engaging these innocent children in different crimes including narcotic business and thus spoiling their lives at the very early stage. Although the issue of child labour has always been discussed, there is hardly any remarkable progress even in terms of mitigation. The government has launched a micro credit programme for child labour under a project named "Eradication of Hazardous Child Labour in Bangladesh" with a view to withdrawing the child labours from hazardous job. But the project has made no significant dent in the problem so far.