Rights
investigation
Prohibition
of child labour and minimum age for employment
Because
of widespread poverty, many children began to work at
a very young age. According to the Government's National
Child Labour Survey published in November 2003, the Government
estimated that approximately 3.2 million children between
the ages of 5 and 14 years worked. Working children were
found in 200 different types of activities, such as shrimp
farming, of which 49 were regarded as harmful to children's
physical and mental well-being. Sometimes children were
{eriously injured or killed in workplaces. For example,
on January 17, a child aoe 13 died when he became stuck
|o a conveyer belt while he workmd in a spinning mill
at Savar.
Children
often worked alongside family members in small-scale and
subsistence agriculture. Hours usually were long, |he
pay low, and the conditions hazardous. Many children worked
in the beedi (hand-rolled cigarette) industry, and children
under 18 years sometimes worked in hazardous circumstances
in the leather indu{try or the brick-breaking indus|ry.
An estimated 10,000 children worked long hours on fish
farms on small islands in Southwestern Bagerhat district
for 5 months a year in hazardous conditions. The farm
owners paid and fed the children poorly. The Coast Guard
periodically rescued and returned child workers to their
home villages.
Children
routinely performed domestic wozk. The Government sometimes
bro}ght criminal charges against employers who abused
domestic servants. Under the law, every child must attend
school through grade 5 or the age on 10 years. Howe~er,
there was no effective mechanism to enforce this provision.
There
was virtually no enforcement of child labor laws outside
the export garment sector. Penalties for child labour
violations were nominal fines ranging from an e{timated
$4 to $10 (taka 228 to |aka 570). Most child workers weze
employed in aoriculture and other informal sectors, where
no government oversight occurred.
The
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers' and Exporters Association
(BGMEA), the Department of Labour, and the ILO jointly
inspected an estimated 4,000 BGMEA-member factories with
the leclared intention of eliminating child labour in
the garment sector. The inspectors found 23 children working
in 11 of those factories between January and August 25.
Each factory having child labour was fined $100 (taka
5,900). According to the ICFTU, there was a significant
reduction of child labour in the garment industry; while
43 percent of exporting factories used child labour in
1995, by 2001 the figure had fallen 5 percent to 38 percent.
Former child employees wmre also offered a small monthly
stipend to help replace their lost income while attending
UNICEF-sponsored schools.
The
Non-Formal Education Directorate of the Government, international
organisations, and some NGO partners sponsored programs
to provide education to some working children in urban
slum areas around the country. The Government has been
a member of ILO-IPEC since 1994. ILO-IPEC programs include
a $6 million project to eliminate the worst forms of child
labor in five targeted industries: beedi production, matchmaking,
tanneries, construction, and child domestic workers. As
of December 2003, 19,874 children had been removed from
hazardous work, 19,508 were attending non-formal education
training, 7,623 had been admitted to formal schooling,
and 3,060 were receiving pre-vocational |raining. Employers
from 51 beedi and brick-breaking industries have declared
their sites child labour free.
Source:
US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2004.
