Bangladesh

Child labour situation

In 2002-03, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) conducted the second National Child Labour Survey (NCLS) . This survey has been designed and conducted in the context of the commitments made by the Government of Bangladesh following the ratification of ILO Convention No. 182. According to the survey there are 4.9 million (14.2 per cent) working children , out of 35.06 million children of the age group 5-14.The total working child population between 5 and 17 years old is estimated at 7.9 million.

• The proportion of boy and girl child workers, in the age group 5-17 is respectively 73.5 per cent and 26.5 per cent.
• The total number of working children aged 5-17 years in rural areas is estimated at 6.4 million as against 1.5 million in urban areas. 93.3 per cent of all working children operate in the informal sector. 4.5 million (56.4 per cent) are engaged in agriculture, 2 million (25.9 percent) are engaged in the services sector, and 1.4 million (17.7 per cent) are engaged in industry.
• 93.3 per cent of all working children operate in the informal sector. 4.5 million (56.4 per cent) are engaged in agriculture, 2 million (25.9 percent) are engaged in the services sector, and 1.4 million (17.7 per cent) are engaged in industry.
• A total of 1.3 million children are estimated to be working 43 hours or more per week. More boys than girls are engaged in this form of child labour across all age groups.

In parallel with the National Child Labour Survey, the establishment survey, and five baseline surveys on the worst forms of child labour in 5 areas (welding, automobile, street children, battery re-charging, and transport) have also been conducted under the supervision of the BBS with technical and financial support from the ILO. The final reports of the establishment survey and the baseline surveys in welding, automobile, and street children are now available. The remaining two baseline surveys in transport and battery-recharging will be available in July 2004.The factors that generate child labour in Bangladesh can be summarized as follows:

• Extreme forms of poverty play a crucial role. Child labour is part of a vicious cycle, with poverty as a main cause as well as a main consequence. This implies that child labour cannot be addressed in isolation. Among factors contributing to (and caused by) child labour are: rapid population growth, adult unemployment, bad working conditions, lack of minimum wages, exploitation of workers, low standard of living, low quality of education, lack of legal provisions and enforcement, low capacity of institutions, gender discrimination, conceptual thinking about childhood, etc. One or more of the above contribute to the large numbers of children working under exploitative or hazardous conditions.
• There is a direct link between child labour and education. Nearly 50% of the primary school students drop out before they complete grade V, and then gravitate towards work, swelling the number of child labourers. The high drop-out rates are correlated with the low quality of public primary education, low adult-literacy, low awareness of the importance of education, teacher-student ratio (sometimes this goes up to 1:100!), non-availability of didactic and learning-materials, and the cost of education. Basic primary education is free, in view of direct cost and schoolbooks. But many indirect costs are involved as well, such as transport, uniforms, pens, pencils, and paper/notebooks. Bangladesh has only limited provision of pre-vocational/vocational skills training and other related constraints such as the quality of the skills training, market and employment linkages and certification, while this could be an attractive option to the working/disadvantaged children and their families. Neither the GOB nor many of the non-governmental organizations have the institutional capacity and technical expertise required to deliver skills training facilities effectively.
• Finally, the level of awareness on the issue of child labour is still low. Society in general has a rather indifferent attitude towards the problem. In many cases it is not realised that the children who are employed in, for example, domestic services, often have no access to education or medical care.