Bangladesh lacks child labour data

Despite the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) stipulation on ending child labour within 2025, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) does not have any updated data on child labour even after six years of the formation of the global goals.

According to the last survey of state-run agency in 2013, 9.7% or more than 34.50 lakh children of the total 3.96 crore were involved in child labour. Of them, 12.80 lakh children were in risky and hazardous jobs.      

After a long nine-year pause, the BBS now initiates a survey on child labour highlighting the baseline SDG achievement and Covid fallout on kid workers.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) will fund the survey, and the findings will be published in June 2022, an inception workshop of the study was told Wednesday.

"The government is committed to ensure the welfare of the children. But the reality is all kids are not getting equal opportunities. The government will have to minimise the inequalities and create at least a congenial atmosphere for them," said Planning Minister MA Mannan as the chief guest of the programme.     

Describing child labour as a "painful and terrible chapter in life", the minister called upon all to play an active role in eliminating it.

Mohammad Yamin Chowdhury, secretary at the Statistics and Informatics Division, said, "There is a global commitment to eradicate all forms of child labour by 2025. But, Bangladesh does not have any baseline data on the current situation of child labour."

"Hazardous child labour has risen to alarming levels in the transport sector. Even some children are employed as drivers," Yamin Chowdhury noted.

He said the BBS is conducting a rapid survey to gauge the virus fallout on Bangladesh economy that will shed light on income and employment.

He said employers "secretly hire" child workers, and it is "very difficult" to find out the real picture.

Ehsan-E-Elahi, secretary at the Ministry of Labour and Employment, echoed Yamin Chowdhury by saying, "Children are forced to work at night in many factories. It is not possible for the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments to collect the information due to the manpower crisis."

He further said there are instructions from the government to inspect the factories regularly. But, it will take five years for the existing manpower of the department to inspect the factories alone in Narayanganj's Rupganj area.

He recommended adequate manpower recruitment to ramp up factory monitoring. He said child labour has been completely eliminated in six sector including readymade garments as there has been comparatively better progress in several others.

Tuomo Poutiainen, Country Director of the ILO in Dhaka, said Bangladesh needs to be more proactive in eliminating child labour to attain the SDGs. He also commented child labour elimination in the remaining four years of the deadline will be challenging.

Tajul Islam, director general at BBS, said there were as many as 74 lakh child labourers in 2002, that dropped by 58% in the next decade. However, there is no up-to-date information as no survey has been conducted for a long time.

He said school closure due to the pandemic has seriously affected the children as many children were compelled to join work owing to pandemic-led family income decline.

BBS Director Kabir Uddin Ahmed presented the keynote at the event.

He said child labour is the exploitation of children depriving of their childhood by work that prevents them attending school or causes physical, mental, or social harm.

Quoting the report of 2013 survey, he said 89.3% of child labour engaged with the informal sector while the rate is 96.2% for the girls.