Social issues behind child labour must be addressed
Dickens, a literary luminary of his era, exposes the vicious cycle where hunger and desperation divide society, laying bare the inequities perpetuated by an exploitative system.
The issue of child labour in Bangladesh is complex and deeply entrenched, but it is not insurmountable.
The National Child Labour Survey 2022 finds
Why are children still subjected to random violence and abuse?
It is disheartening to find underprivileged children working menial jobs on university campuses across the country.
“This is Mohammadpur, get off,” a child yelled out to the passengers of a leguna, otherwise known as human hauliers, which had reached the area as early as 7:00am.
We cannot eradicate child labour from Bangladesh if we cannot provide these children and their families with the necessary social and financial support.
The answer isn’t easy, but it’s vital that we consider all options
Sometimes I wonder how the future generations will view our time. For example, what will be their reaction when they come to know of the child labour situation in our society?
Bangladesh has made encouraging progress in increasing the number of enrollment in schools and yet 1.7 million children find themselves toiling in the informal sector of the economy...
A toothbrush, two shirts, a pair of trousers and a savings of Tk 465 are all that Russell has after four years of back-breaking labour at
One can easily count the ribcage bones of the 11-year-old bidi (local cigarette) factory worker. Stunted Monir Islam suffers from health problems such as frequent fevers, headaches, nausea and cough but has to work due to poverty.
Labour practices and the right to organise by workers have recently received a lot of attention in Western media, triggered by terrible industry accidents in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
In any country, one has to be an adult to qualify as a driver. But in Bangladesh, one does not have to obey that law to become a driver – and that literally means it is “allowed”.
Seventy-year-old day labourer Md Altaf Hossain from Nokathi village in Jhalakathi's Rajapur upazila has seven children, none of whom studied even as far as the Secondary School Certificate except one of his sons, Md Nasiruddin. Economic hardship made education elusive for the family but Nasiruddin, now 24, was determined. Unable to rely on financial support from home for his tertiary studies, Nasiruddin turned to pedal power.
The news of 12-year-old Purnima, being set alight by her employer and then left in a warehouse without any medical treatment...
While we can take comfort from the fact that we have been able to reduce the number of child workers by two million in the last 10 years, a large number of children are still employed in hazardous work.
The Child Bill 2013 is supposed to be in harmony with the CRC and recognises that an individual below 18 is a child. Why then do we still have child marriages? Why then do we have little children working in homes, in biri factories, in garbage dumps and tanneries?