The Bangladesh Journal - One crore child labourers now in Bangladesh

About one crore children are now engaged in various labouring jobs in Bangladesh. Of them, 100 per cent are in risky condition.

Enforcing regulations concerning procedures and safety practices and determining and implementing a wage scale for children who are compelled to work could help to eliminate child labour in the country.

Introducing skill training for income generating activities, ensuring child focused effective safety net and poverty alleviation programmes and increasing livelihood opportunities would also eliminate the child labour.

Legal experts, economists and social workers said these at a press conference on ‘harmful child labour and violence, abuse and exploitation of children in Bangladesh’ organised by Human Development Research Centre (HDRC) and Save the Children UK at

CIRDAP auditorium in the city yesterday.

Dr Abul Barkat, Professor of Department of Economics of Dhaka University, presented the key findings, policy and programmatic implications study, while Justice Golam Rabbani presided over the conference.

Shumon Sengupta, Country Director of Save the Children UK, Dr Kamal Siddiqui, among others, spoke on the occasion.

Speakers urged the Government to implement and monitor the Children Act 1974 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Children (CRC).

At the macro level, there is a need for budget analysis using a child rights lens. Human and financial resources need to be made available for the child protection on one hand and enable communities to take action and make better use of existing services resource on the other. Promoting child rights and protecting children from violence, exploitation and abuse, including hazardous forms of child labour needs to be a priority for Bangladesh, speakers said.

About 90 per cent children come from rural areas in Bangladesh. About 46 per cent of the household members are children under 18 years, while 36 per cent household members constitute in working child age group, 40 per cent are working children and 24 per cent child labour. The prevalence of child labour at harmful work is 23.5 per cent. Poor payment is a major reason for unhappiness reported by 61 per cent of the working children, the study report said.