The cruel face of child labour -The Asian Age

Child labour in Bangladesh is rampant. Growing marginal people - due to an uneven economic development across the regions against which the government has been working sincerely though - in addition to financial essentiality for a poor family are helping the escalation of child labour in the country by forcing families to send their children even to hazardous forms of labour and low-wage jobs.

About 3.45 million children are engaged in different forms of labour, and among the total number 1.2 millions are trapped into hazardous forms of labour. With no confusion about the fact that Bangladesh's economy is heading, with a healthy growth rate of over seven and a half percent a year, towards the anticipated goal of earning the status of a 'middle income economy' by 2021, but child labour cannot be prevented.

Children aged below 14 years and engaged in working are specified as child labourers in the Labour Act 2006. On the other hand, the government has identified 38 sectors as hazardous for children.

However, as 93 percent of children below the legally defined age limit work in the informal sector - for instances, in small factories and workshops, on the streets, in home-based businesses and domestic employment - it is really hard to fully implement the labour law.

But these unsafe working fields and also other critical factors - such as long hours, low or no wages, poor food and isolation - truly make the child labourers susceptible to physical, mental, sexual abuses and even death, and tarnish their future by spoiling the present. Getting trapped into the vicious cycle of poverty, families which find it hard to afford their children minimum food and education usually tend to engage the children into physical labour.

The government has taken a good number of initiatives to alleviate poverty and illiteracy, from which the country has already started reaping benefits, but the curse of child labour still persists, thanks to lethargy of the persons concerned engaged in the government projects. As a signatory of a number of international accords, the country finds it mandatory to completely remove child labour in order to attain the sustainable goals within 2030. Children must be sent back to schools for proper education.

A safe and healthy childhood is the most important need of a child to grow up with strong mentality to lead the nation. Everyone from each tier of society should come forward for a collective social campaign against child labour. Only then, the hazards of child labour can be tackled effectively. From the policymaking level, comprehensive policy instruments need to formulate to get child labour eradicated from the country.