The government is set to miss the target for eliminating child labour by 2015 as per a policy mainly due to a lack of willingness to accomplish the task, child rights activists and campaigners have said.
A large number of children are still employed in different forms of hazardous jobs as measures taken under the National Plan of Action (NPA), which is tasked with implementing the policy by 2016, also remain unimplemented, they say.
By the look of things, the NPA will also fail to meet its deadline.
The government, with the National Child Labour Elimination Policy 2015, set a target for eradicating all forms of child labour by 2016. The policy accommodated a set of actions including withdrawal of children from all hazardous jobs and improving law enforcement to eliminate child labour.
In this backdrop, the government observes World Day against Child Labour today with the theme “No to child labour, yes to quality education.”
Although there are no comprehensive statistics on how many children are employed in hazardous jobs at present, a 12-year-old survey suggests that 3.2 million children, aged between five and 17, were engaged in active labour. At least 1.3 million were involved in hazardous jobs, with boys accounting for 91% of them.
Children today can be seen working as mechanics, messengers, shoe-shiners, cleaners, junk collectors, flower sellers, transport helpers, domestic hands, and so on.
Abdus Shahid Mahmood, director of Bangladesh Shishu Odhikar Forum, slammed the government for its lack of willingness.
“The NPA suggests forming committees at the district level. But there are no such committees. The government has so far held just one meeting on the NPA although it had made many decisions, which remained unimplemented because there is nobody to monitor the activities,” Shahid told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday when contacted.
He said unavailability of data was a core reason behind these problems and the government should focus on eliminating child labour in the informal sector that employs most child labourers.
The government has a list of 38 types of work deemed as hazardous for children which include ship breaking, leather manufacturing, construction and automobile repairs.
According to the 2003 survey – last of its kind – conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, around 90% of child labourers work in the informal economy. Of them, 350,000 children are employed in the urban informal economy.
Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, assistant executive director of Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies told the Dhaka Tribune: “The government should be asked why it had failed to meet the [NPA] project deadline. We may expect a ruling from the High Court in this regard.
“I do not know why the government took up this project – whether it was feasible from Bangladesh’s perspective. We also need to understand whether the government was advised by any NGO.”
Asked how child labour could be eliminated, he said: “The families of child labourers should be involved. Employers can be made to recruit members of these families instead of the children. The families should also be made accountable as to why they are sending their children to work and where the problems lie need to be identified.
“Moreover, steps can be taken to make the environment and education at primary schools more attractive.”
Syeda Munira Sultana, national project coordinator of the International Labour Organisation, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The positive thing is that we had finally managed to hold a meeting of the council that will implement the NPA. There are 37 members and it is led by the labour minister. We are going to introduce a child labour unit very soon. We are also working to bring the sectors that are hazardous for children under the labour law.”
While talking to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday, Faizur Rahman, secretary of the Labour Ministry, admitted that they are going to miss the policy implementation deadline.
Asked why no survey had been done in 12 years, the secretary said the ILO and the BBS are currently working on this and some statistics will be available by the end of this year.