Around 400 children have put their health and life at risk while working as helpers and drivers of locally-assembled faulty and unauthorised vehicles in Mymensingh.
More than 100 of them are found to have been suffering from breathing, hearing and skin diseases.
Sources said locally-assembled Nasiman, Kariman and Bhatbhati vehicles are two-stroke diesel engines.
They contribute to air pollution with excessive levels of smoke emission and to sound pollution with making excessive amount of noise on public roads.
Most of the locally-assembled vehicles either do not have any hydraulic brake or gear or any backside signal light. Many child workers are said to have been maimed in road accidents involving such vehicles.
Though children aged between eight to 16 work as helpers and drivers of these vulnerable vehicles, they get a shockingly low amount of wages every day. They get as helpers Tk50 to 60 and as drivers Tk100 to 150 per day.
Nasiman helper Rafiqul hails from Tangab village in Gafargaon upazila. An under-12-year-old child, he suffers from breathing problems. He could not continue at school after passing Class-1. He had to start work as a helper of a Nasiman vehicle.
Like him, Bulbul, 11, Nayon, 10, Kanchon, 9, Monir, 9, Shahid, 12 and Liton, 15, work as helpers or drivers of Nasiman, Kariman and Bhatbhati. They all are driven by poverty to come to this deadly profession.
Deputy Commissioner Mustakim Billah Faruki was asked about this all, he said each upazila nirbahi officer had long been asked to run their mobile courts along with police in preventing hazardous child labour in the district.
They regularly operate their mobile court drives. Big initiatives would be taken on large scale in future to root out this menace, he said.
