The number of children engaged in hazardous child labour has been decreased 16.55 per cent in the last nine years in Bangladesh, according to the National Child Labour Survey, 2022.
Currently 1.068 million children are being engaged in hazardous works in the country which was 1.280 million in 2013. Currently, 17.76 lakhs children are engaged as child labour which was 16.98 lakhs in 2013.
The number of children engaged in child labor has increased 4.54 per cent, indicating that more children are being engaged in labor works than in 2013. However, number of total working children has been increased by 4.54 per cent, says provisional report of the National Child Labour Survey, conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
The BBS compared the findings with the previous survey conducted in 2013. The surveys were conducted among children aged between 5 to 17 years.
The latest findings were disseminated on Wednesday at a programme in the capital.
It says that among the total 39 million children aged between 5 to 17 years, 8.9 per cent are working children. Male children are dominating the number as 13.2 per cent, while 4.4 per cent children are the child laborers. The proportion of hazardous child labour is 2.7 per cent.
The children aged between 15-17 years are mostly engaged in hazardous child labour—7.9 per cent followed by 1.6 per cent of age between 12 to 13 years.
In 2013, 3.45 million children were engaged in working which stands at 3.54 per cent in 2022.
Among the children engaged in child labour, 6.6 per cent are male and 2.1 percent are female while among those engaged in hazardous works, 4.3 per cent are male and 0.9 per cent is female.
The child labour indicators by board economic sectors shows that among the working children, 1.27 are in service sector, 1.08 million are in agriculture and 1.19 million are in industry sector.
But of the children engaged in hazardous child labour, 0.04 are in agriculture, 0.38 in service and 0.65 million in industry sector. In the child labour criteria, 0.56 million are engaged in service sector, 0.42 million are in agriculture and 0.79 million are in industry sector.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), if children are exposed to physical, psychological or sexual abuse, work underground, underwater or dangerous height of confined spaces, work with dangerous machineries, equipment and tools, or being engaged in manual handling and heavy loads, work in an unhealthy environment are called hazardous works.
Speaking to the occasion, secretary to the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Md. Ehsan-E-Elahi said, they are going to take a mammoth project to eliminate child labour participated by a number of ministries and government entities.
“The feasibility study has been conducted already. This will help rehabilitate children to normal life who are now being engaged in child labour,” he said.
“In Bangladesh informal sector in urban area dominates over the formal sector. In the informal sector there no practice of paper works and children are being exploited largely. Poor children get jobs easily there,” said Md. Matiar Rahman, Director General of BBS.
Planning Minister MA Mannan said, “The goal of this government is to eliminate poverty and to reduce discrimination. This is the only way to decrease child labour. We are working on that.”
Among others, Dr. Shahnaz Arefin, secretary to Statistics and informatics Division, Matt Cannel, Deputy High Commissioner of British High Commission, Tuomo Poutiainen, country director ILO spoke to the occasion.
