The number of children aged between 5 and 17 years engaged in hazardous work has reduced from 12,80,195 to 10,68,212 since 2013, a new report of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), released on Wednesday, said.
The BBS published the provisional report titled "National Child Labour Survey 2022". Planning Minister MA Mannan was present as the chief guest at the publication event.
Md Ehsan-E-Elahi, Secretary of Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr Shahnaz Arefin, Secretary of Statistics and Informatics Division, Matt Cannell, Deputy High Commissioner and Development Director of the British High Commission, TuomoPoutiainen, Country Director of ILO, and MdMatiar Rahman, Director General (Additional Secretary), Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics were also present at the event.
The BBS report reveals that the percentage of working children has risen to 8.90 percent in 2022, in comparison to 8.70 percent recorded in the 2013 survey.
The number of children engaged in child labour has reached over 1.776 million, reflecting an increase of 77,203 children in the past ten years, according to a recent child labour survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
The objectives of the national child labour survey 2022 were to identify the number of working children and children engaged in child labour and hazardous child labour, to obtain information on the child population according to various sectors, sexes, locations and households with children.
Apart from this, an idea about the educational attainment status of the child population will be obtained.
Analyzing the results of the National Child Labor Survey 2022, it can be seen that the number of children aged 5-17 years is 39,964,005 or 39.96 million. Among them, the number of working children is 3,536,927 (8.9 percent) and children engaged in child labour is 1,776,097 (4.4 percent), and hazardous child labour is 1,068,212 (2.7 percent) respectively.
Where the 2013 Child Labour Survey found that the number of children aged 5 and 17 years was 39,652,384, among them working children was 3,450,369 (8.7 percent) and children engaged in child labour was 1,698,894 (4.3 percent), and hazardous child labour was 1,280,195 (3.2 percent).
A comparison of the results of the National Child Labor Survey 2013 and 2022 shows a slight increase in the number of working children and children engaged in child labour in 2022 compared to 2013.
This increase is insignificant compared to the population growth in the last ten years.
However, the number of children engaged in hazardous child labour has decreased significantly.
This significant reduction in hazardous child labour is possible due to various initiatives taken by the government to eradicate child labour from our country.
According to the NCLS 2022, 51.79 percent (20,698,077 or 20.70 million) are male children, and remaining 48.21 percent (19.265,375 or 19.27 million) are female children.
The number of working children is 3,536,927 (3.54 million), comprising 2,734,044 male children and 802,883 female Male children are 1,374,154, and female children are 401,943 out of the 1,776,097 (1.77 million) children engaged in child labour.
Similarly, out of the 1,068.212 (1.07 million) children in hazardous child labour, the number of male children is 895,195 (0.90 million), and the number of female children is 173,017 (0.17 million), respectively.
Among 5-17 years old children, rural areas account for 30,349,052 or 30.35 million children, and the urban regions account for 9,614,953 or 9.61 million. The numbers of working in rural and urban areas are 2,725,400 (9 percent), and 811,527 (8.4 percent), respectively.
Similarly, the number of children engaged in child labour in rural areas is 1,337,464 (4.4 percent) and in urban areas is 438,634 (4.6 percent).
In rural and urban areas, children involved in hazardous child labour make up 832,693 (2.7 percent) and 235,519 (2.4 percent).
In terms of economic sectors, out of the total children aged between 5 and 17 years, 1,079,559 or 1.08 million children are engaged in the agriculture sector, 1,191,806 or 1.19 million in the industry sector and 1,270,431 or 1.27 million children in the service sector respectively.
It is expected that the findings of this report will be pivotal for planners, policymakers and other stakeholders in formulating policies to eliminate child labour from Bangladesh by 2025. More details of this survey will be available after the main report is published.