Containing child labour a hazardous task
EMPLOYING children in hazardous work had long been a contentious issue in Bangladesh. The National Child Labour Survey of 2020 survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), released at its office in Dhaka recently, showed that the child labour has increased by 4.54 per cent to 1.77 million in last 10 years. Multiple media reports also said children aged between 5 and 17 engaged in multiple types of hazardous jobs, and the children in unsafe work leaves space for deep thoughts.
Although the government has taken initiatives a couple of years ago to eliminate the worst forms of child labour from eight export-oriented sectors, including the RMG, reports of child labour are being secretly used in some factories. Moreover, there are other informal sectors which allegedly employ a large number of child workers.
As has been observed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), child labour is work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and mental development.
It defines hazardous child labour as work that is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children. It includes work in dangerous or unhealthy environments, like quarrying, agriculture, and machine-tool and smelting factories.
In our context, engaging children in brick kilns, public transport, motor workshops, dingy factories manufacturing hazardous objects, and dozens of other types of sweatshops is considered detrimental to children’s normal healthy growth. As a general rule, the hapless children have to undergo a series of deleterious impacts on their school education, health and social life.
The BBS survey notes the percentage of working children–those who are hired permanently as workers that prevents them from going to school and threatens their physical and psychological health, has increased to 8.90 per cent in 2022, compared to 8.70 per cent found in the 2013 survey.
It’s heartening to note that child rights protection groups and other rights platforms have long been engaged in the movement to fight against child labour in hazardous jobs. During the pandemic period in June 2021, the United Nations said that child labour has risen for the first time in 20 years, with one in 10 children in work worldwide and millions more are at risk due to Covid-19. Not many of the children forced to drop out from school could be brought back because before the economy could turn around, soaring energy prices and Russia-Ukraine war made an economic recovery for the low-income families impossible.
