Saving their childhood

If a nation forces its children to be workers, its future is bleak as children are in fact the future of a nation. Keeping this maxim in view the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has banned child labour across the countries of the world. But unfortunately like many other developing nations this view is largely ignored in Bangladesh. In our country when children are supposed to be studying at schools, they are instead engaged in odd and hazardous jobs. As such, their work is keeping them outside their homes and schools in order to support themselves and their families. There are approximately 1.7 million children in Bangladesh now working for pittance and nearly 1.3 million children are involved in hazardous jobs to support their families.

Despite the amendment of laws and inking the ILO Convention by the government on the worst forms of child labour, millions of children are engaged in perilous jobs fraught with danger that is harming their physical and mental well-being as well as keeping them away from their studies. These children are deprived of their fundamental right to education and childhood joys and amusements. While working in such hazardous workplaces, they are also under high risks of injury, illness, physical and verbal abuse and even death. The media on the occasion of the Universal Children's Day has very recently highlighted these abominable facts of child abuse across the country. Reports about child labour and the miseries of working children are regularly published in newspapers and particularly human rights-promoting organisations are quite vocal about the plight of children engaged in risky jobs. But nobody seems to care about these hapless children of the country now.

Effective means to resolve the crisis faced by the families who find the supplementary income of their children indispensable are yet to be taken. It needs to be realised by the authorities concerned that the intergenerational transfer of poverty is likely to continue if child labourers are not withdrawn from workforce with immediate effect. Child labour is an issue that can hold the nation back from achieving a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set for 2030 - like universal secondary education and quality education, poverty eradication and decent work for all.

A significant and pernicious effect of child labour is that children are deprived of their childhood which is a period of fun, frolic and play. Child labour also undermines the dignity and freedom vitally important for children to grow as worthy and precious citizens of the future.

Against this backdrop, it is imperative for the authorities concerned to immediately implement the national education policy 2010 that makes education compulsory till eighth grade. Besides, the National Social Security Strategy (NSSS) 2015 should be followed to provide better coverage of the safety net to families, which are forced by poverty to send their children to work. We want to see an end to child labour in jobs of all forms as early as possible for a better future for the children in particular and the country and its people in general. Social awareness, social safety net and socio-economic incentives can improve factors for eradicating, nay wiping out child labour from the national scenario and save childhood of these children for a better future of the country.

Sarwar Md. Saifullah Khaled is a retired Professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre. [email protected]