To end child labour, social justice must be ensured

Dr Matiur Rahman :
The ‘World Day against Child Labor’ has been celebrated since 2002 to protect children’s rights and eliminate hazardous child labour. This day is celebrated on June 12 every year in different countries of the world including Bangladesh. This year the theme of the day is ‘Social Justice for All. End Child Labor!’
The United Nations (UN) mentioned that over the past few years, conflicts, crises and the Covid-19 pandemic have plunged more families into poverty worldwide – and forced millions more children into child labour. Because of all this, many families and communities in many countries experience financial pressures that force them to engage their children in work. Economic growth is not enough, nor inclusive enough, to get rid of it. 160 million children are still engaged in child labour worldwide. Globally, 1 in 10 children is involved in child labour.

There are no accurate statistics on child labour in Bangladesh. According to the survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in 2013, more than ten years ago, 9.7 per cent of the 3.96 million children, i.e. 3.45 million children, were engaged in some form of labour. Out of this, 1.28 million children were engaged in hazardous labour.
On the other hand, according to International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates, the number of children directly involved in formal labour in Bangladesh is about 4.7 million, which is about 13.4 per cent of children aged 5-14 years. And 83 per cent of these child labourers are located in rural areas and only 17 per cent in urban areas. But in reality, it appears that the number of child labourers will be much higher.
There are no fixed working hours for child labourers in Bangladesh. They have to work 14 to 18 hours and the wages are very low. No one takes responsibility for monitoring the matter. This is by no means an acceptable condition from the point of view of socio-economic development.

Street Children Survey 2022 conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has presented the overall picture of street children in the country. According to survey data, children leave home for various reasons including poverty, family turmoil, and lack of food. 64 per cent of these children do not want to return to their families.
Around 92.11 per cent of boys and 84.5 per cent of girls participating in the survey are engaged in various activities. 20.9 per cent of street children make a living by picking waste. Besides, 18.4 per cent of street children beg or help to beg. The survey data shows the extreme plight of street children. However, the exact number of street children was not found in this survey.
According to the International Labor Organization and UNICEF survey published earlier, children are engaged in about 301 types of economic activities in urban areas of Bangladesh. Children are mostly engaged in hawking, rickshaw driving, prostitution, flower selling, garbage collection, brick and stone breaking, hotel work, drug-carrying, welding factory work, etc.
In such a context, the United Nations says, our collective experience in combating child labour has proven that child labour can be eradicated if the root causes are addressed. It is important for all of us to contribute to solving people’s day-to-day problems and to do so more efficiently and coherently. Child labour is – perhaps – the most visible of these problems.

The ILO says ending child labour is a cornerstone of the desire for social justice, whereby every worker can demand, freely and based on equality of opportunity, their fair share of the wealth they have helped to create.
Situations related to child labour echo multiple challenges and a perceived lack of satisfactory response to change. It is a problem caused and perpetuated by poverty and exclusion. It deprives children of education and opportunity and creates odds against them securing a decent income and stable employment as adults.
It is an injustice that is felt mostly at the family and household level – two-thirds of child labour occurs as a contributing family member. But it holds back economic growth for entire countries and can be linked to growing inequality in many parts of the world. It is a threat to social cohesion and human progress.
Measures to combat child labour include the establishment and implementation of a strong legal framework based on international labour standards and social dialogue, the provision of universal access to good quality education and social protection, as well as direct measures to eliminate poverty, inequality and economic insecurity. And providing decent work for adult workers.
The Durban Call to Action adopted at the 5th World Conference in 2022 promotes concrete action to address the root causes of child labour and advance social justice. It is adopted as a blueprint for building opinions against child labour using positive economic, political and social systems. It seeks to ensure that commitments against child labour are prioritized in national and global policy-making and action, in development cooperation and in financial, trade and investment agreements.
The ILO’s call for this year’s World Day Against Child Labor is to revitalize international action to achieve social justice, especially the elimination of child labour under the Global Coalition for Social Justice, as it is one of the most important elements.
ILO Convention No. 138 on the minimum age, which will provide legal protection to all children against all forms of child labour, in conjunction with the universal ratification of ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labour, adopted in 2020; and effective implementation of the Durban Call to Action.
Therefore, the ILO regards the 2023 World Day Against Child Labor as a moment for all of us committed to ending child labour and to demonstrate the change that can be achieved when will and determination unite, and provide momentum for efforts to be accelerated in a situation of great urgency.

(The writer is a researcher and
development worker).