Monday | 7 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Monday | 7 October 2024 | Epaper

Of Child Labour

Lost peek-a-boo days!

Published : Thursday, 15 June, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 259
Nazmun Naher Shishir
A girl, aged not more than seven, used to 'live' beside our flat in Jessore cantonment, and back then I was only ten. I never got much time to talk to her, but I used to observe her frightened face in front of her 'owner', her shaking hand while staring down with a heavy bucket full of wet clothes.
Her red eyes used to sadden me whenever she used to get up from her afternoon sleep only to respond to the doorbell. And those afternoon sleeps were not the fruits of early morning to noon's non-stop hard work, rather a careless sleep when everyone else at home was taking a sound nap.
I wish I could penetrate her hungry belly when she used to serve dishes for gods; and after a while, in a tiny corner of the kitchen, she used to swallow more than one can chew.   
Clearly, I can recall, they used to call her Fuli.
On every sunny days, while crossing the road in Shahbag, I see him, words bubble in my head -- he's supposed to go to school, he's supposed to be at playground, he is supposed to be in his mother's lap.
But at the age of 6, Ibrahim is supporting his family financially, selling flowers in Shahbag signal hugging a stretcher, and he dreams to go to school.
Like Ibrahim, Putuli sales flowers too and she dreams to be an actress. She says, "Prottekdin amar school-e jaite mon chay, kintu jaite parina" (Everyday I wish to go to school, but I cannot). Per rose she earns 10 taka and till sunsets, she earns 250 taka.
Being a Banana seller, Putuli's father is unable to maintain five members' family. So, being the eldest daughter she works. Enthusiastic to study, Putuli informs me while talking that she can write her name in English.  
Faisal never stepped into school but dreams to be a police officer. To survive he works as tokai and lives in Kamalapur slum. Daily, he earns 150 taka which hardly meets his needs. He never met his parents, therefore, his perpetual desire is to help orphans once he get to the police force.  
Like Faisal, Emon Ahmed is also a tokai but he studied till class five. To survive and to maintain his family he could not start the sixth grade.
Belal, a Kamalapur slum dweller, started working as car mechanic soon after his father's death in a road accident. He earns fifteen hundred taka per month on which his family: sister and mother, lives on. Despite such hardship of life, Belal still dreams to be a mechanical engineer.
Poverty causes families to send their children to work. Even, factory owners, or house owners prefer to keep a child at work as children can be paid less.
Children often do dangerous works like brick-chipping, construction, waste-picking and household chores to earn money. As a result, they fall prey to injuries and diseases. Moreover, the risk of mental and physical harassment always remain. Therefore, these children, who work for living, are bereft of school, entertainment, sanitation, and proper nutrition.  
According to the Labour Law of Bangladesh 2006, the minimum legal age for employment is 14. But before these children cross ten, they are at work to feed their family.
In Bangladesh, 12 and 13 year olds are permitted to do what is considered 'light work' for up to 42 hours per week. Though 'light work' is not strictly defined, it explicitly prohibits children from working all-night shifts or in railways, ports or factories.
Researchers from the London-based Overseas Development Institute surveyed that nearly there are 3,000 households in the slums of Dhaka. They found children as young as 6 employed full-time and others working up to 100 to 110 hours a week. On average the working children earn less than two hundred taka a day.
These are the ages when a child goes to school, plays in the ground, passes times in school projects, laughs loud pulling friend's leg and spends careless days. But the scenario is quiet different in case of these less privileged children.   
It seems, enforcing the law regarding child labour issue is becoming tough, because, to ensure child labour free country, the government has to fight with poverty, nutrition, education and other basic rights which is not a one-day task.  But still, along with the government many of the NGOs are working to combat poverty along with child labour. School authorities should get engaged with community-based groups to identify children who are either working or at risk of child labour not only as a consequence of school drop-out but to bring them back to the school. However, the need to improve the quality of schooling in Dhaka's slums is urgent.
In such circumstances, to educate children who are busy earning money for living in the day time can study at night school, and this is not a rare case now days. Apart from this, in terms of their age, the work they are doing should be monitored, and how far that proportion of work is appropriate would help the children overcome the nightmare of child labour. Again, this way of monitoring would help continue their study at night schools.  
Of course, like Belal, Faisal, and Fuli, most child labourers work out of dire necessity. They have to contribute financially in their family to meet their household's basic needs, and that income becomes a more immediate necessity than schooling.
The consequences of ignoring these problems regarding child labour and their educational rights would be devastating for the long-run and that would contribute as a roadblock for our country's development.   
    Photo: Alex Romario





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