It is encouraging to note that the Cabinet on Monday imposed a ban on the employment of kids under the age of 14 years for work as per the proposal of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention-138, which restricts employment of any child below 15.
We cannot deny that the incumbent government has implemented several fruitful policies to end child labour and protect child right. It needs no emphasising that Bangladesh has made great strides in reducing child labour but the pandemic has worsened the situation plunging millions of children into child labour. Reportedly, more than three million children in Bangladesh are still trapped in hazardous child labour.
A lack of sufficient support services for
children prevents full implementation
of existing government laws and policies
Child labour is not only a cause but also a consequence of social inequities reinforced by discrimination. We live in such a hierarchical social structure where families from middle class to rich class employ children as their domestic workers. Being deprived of their basic rights such children are compelled to work as domestic helps at urban households. Poverty, lack of social security and mass-consciousness, lawlessness, wrong implementation of laws and child right acts are the main reasons pushing millions of our children to give labour to earn their livelihood and help their family.
In Bangladesh we don’t have any comprehensive public arrangement to address child labour. On top of that, a lack of sufficient support services for children prevents full implementation of existing government laws and policies.
This pandemic allows the country an opportunity to address the issue of widespread child labour with redesigned policy interventions. We hope that the government will look forward to strictly implementing existing laws and provisions to put the opportunist employers who engage children to avail benefit of cheap labour behind the bar. The government should address the issue of child labour amid the pandemic from all possible sides. Besides implementing laws and provisions and making policies and ensuring proper implementation of them, what is further needed is to add-up a layer of consciousness among mass people about child labour. It is time to come together to fight on behalf of the betterment of our children.
