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Hazardous child labour will be ended in Bangladesh by the year 2021, and all forms of child labour will be removed by 2025. State minister for labour and employment Mujibul Huq expressed this conviction, stressing the need for coordination between the ministries to this end. He was speaking as chief guest at the roundtable on ‘Our Responsibility in Ending Child Labour’, organised by Prothom Alo on Tuesday at its office in Kawran Bazar. The state minister said that employing children was a matter of mindset. "Some persons talked big in public about human rights, but at home they employed children to do their domestic work," he said and called upon the media to raise awareness in this regard. There were 3.4 million children involved in various forms of employment around the country, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBC) child labour survey 2013, as the roundtable was told. Of them, about 1.7 million fell into the category of child labour. Addressing the roundtable, Prothom Alo editor Matiur Rahman said that Bangladesh had made huge strides in education, health and other fields. However, there was still a long way to go. Much could be achieved through joint efforts of the government, the donor community, NGOs and the media, he added. Prothom Alo gave much attention to child labour and would continue to do so, the editor said. Speakers at the roundtable, held with support by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), referred to the post-2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are aimed at ending all types of child labour by 2025. This would be possible through government and non-government collaboration and appropriate budgetary allocations, they added. The meeting was moderated by Prothom Alo associate editor Abdul Qayyum. Joint secretary of the labour and employment ministry Khandakar Mostan Hossain presented the keynote on the state of child labour in the country. He said, over the past few years, under the third phase of a self-financed project of the government, about 100,000 children, earlier engaged in hazardous labour, had been rehababilitated. The fourth phase of the project was awaiting approval. Additional secretary of the primary and mass education ministry Nazrul Islam Khan said, if primary education was made effective till grade VIII, the number of child labourers would fall or child labour would even come to an end. Director of Manusher Jonno Foundation, Tofail Ahmed, said that rather than merely talking about an end to child labour, it would be effective to adopt the life-cycle approach with focus on childhood. He said parents feel that educating a child is of no use and it was more profitable to put them to work. ILO’s country director Srinivas B Reddy said, poverty is not the only reason behind child labour. Socio-cultural factors and mentality was also responsible. He stressed the need for implementing various relevant polices and laws, prioritising the issue of removing child labour in the seventh five-year plan, and making arrangements for the rehabilitation of child workers. Inspector general for Factories and Establishments Syed Ahmad said, so far 46 cases had been filed regarding child labour. Employers were being motivated to stop child labour. Bangladesh Child Rights Forum chairperson Ekramul Huq Chowdhury recommended that, in order to end child labour, the school system should be made more congenial and children should be given importance in social security programmes. Unicef child protection officer Jamil Hasan said arrangements would have to be made for conditional employment of the parents and budget allocations made for various programmes aimed at ending child labour. Save the Children deputy director Tim Waite said it would take collaborative efforts to remove the large number of children away from labour. The government cannot do this alone. There is no alternative for mid-income countries but to ensure the children go to school. World Vision national director Fred Witteveen said it would be possible to implement SDG if the plan and commitment to end child labour was taken ahead. Bangladesh Employers Federation secretary general Faruk Ahmed said it would be difficult to remove child workers from the enormous informal sector. Joint initiatives were imperative. Chairperson of the National Coordination Committee on Workers Education Shukkur Mahmud stressed the need to render the parents economically able in order to bring an end to child labour. Bangladesh Textile and Garments Workers League vice president Marium Akhter said there may be no child workers in factories with full compliance, but child labour was still being used in the smaller factories.
Keywords
child labour, Bangladesh, Minister for labour and employment, domestic work, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, child labour survey, ILO, sustainable development goals, budgetary allocations, rehabilitation
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