More need to be done to end child labour in factories

MEDIA report on Tuesday said police rescued 27 minor children from the same factory of Narayanganj in the previous day where some employees killed a teenage boy early this week by pumping air from a compressor into his body through rectum. This textile factory is employing child labour at low cost and 10-year-old Sagar Barman was working there with his father to help the poor family with some extra income.
Report said this factory pays Tk 2,000-3,000 a month to child worker. The children carry out risky work in the textile mills, which is illegal and not also allowed by importer of garment from Bangladesh. But around 3.2 million children are believed still working in factories and workshops and in doing so they are not attending schools. This is yet another crime that the factories are committing by engaging child labour and surprisingly, the labour directorate is not giving much attention to the problem contributing to school drop outs.
The sad demise of Sagar Barman is just a big blow to the family and the nation as a whole. His killers must be tried without delay. But we are also concerned whether other children were subjected to such cruelties that need to be investigated by concern labour officials and human rights organizations. In fact poverty of poor families force their children to take jobs without going to schools. As a result, children are compelled to work under exploitative conditions. We must say extra policing of regulatory establishments is urgently needed, and the existing law against child labour should be strictly enforced.
Besides, the government must improve co-ordination of social safety net schemes to direct more help to poor families so that their children can attend schools to become educated and at least a skilled labour at the end.
We need to extend better help to large numbers of children still deprived of the education, the opportunity; which is their rights. High drop out rates from schools are the biggest drag on efforts to end child labour. Within primary schools, there is evidence that programs to distribute breakfasts and mid-day meals, or to pay stipends to poorer families, are proving very successful in keeping children within the education system.
In our view poor children’s access to such facilities must be increased while vigilance at factory level must similarly be strict so that physical abuse of children and their exploitation as workers must end. We must say factories should not engage cheaper child worker and where they will be still working should have scope for primary lessons and training for skill development.