Bangladesh improves moderately in eliminating worst forms of child labour

Infograph: TBS

Bangladesh made some moderate advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in 2021, according to a recent report by the US Department of Labour.

The report also mentioned that children are forced to perform dangerous tasks in the production of garments and leather goods sector in Bangladesh.

The report titled "2022 List of Goods Produced by Child Labour or Forced Labour" showed in early 2022, Bangladesh has ratified key international conventions concerning child labour. 

However, Bangladesh's export-oriented industry leaders and entrepreneurs have opposed this report's findings over child labour and forced labour in their industries. 

Entrepreneurs express their fear over the consequences of such a report, which might affect the country's reputation in the global arena and their business growth too. 

They also say such a report may raise questions about Bangladesh's continuation of the GSP Plus facility in the European Union as the country is scheduled to graduate to a developing nation by 2026. 

Talking to The Business Standard, Mohammad Hatem, executive president of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said "We challenge them that the export-oriented industry has no scope to employ any child."

Echoing him, Shahidullah Azim, vice-president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said, "We can assure that there is no child or forced labour in our member industries." 

The US Department of Labour report said other hazardous sectors in which children work include tanneries, shipbreaking and the dried fish industry.

Children are forced to work in the dried fish industry all day without protective gear and are exposed to the insecticide DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane), salt, and the sun, the report noted.

The government has established laws and regulations related to child labour and also removed 5,088 children in vulnerable situations from 23 districts through labour inspections, the report also said. 

However, gaps exist in Bangladesh's legal framework to adequately protect children from the worst forms of child labour, including the minimum age for work, commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour in drying of fish and production of bricks, the report mentioned. 

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics estimated that there were 1.28 million children working in hazardous sectors before the Covid-19 pandemic, with 260,000 children working in the government's officially listed hazardous sectors.

In 2021, labour law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh took actions to address child labour. However, gaps exist within the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments authority that may hinder adequate labour law enforcement, including a lack of reciprocal referral mechanism between labour authorities and social services, the US Department of Labour report said.

The Bangladesh Labour Act does not apply to the informal sector, in which most child labour in Bangladesh occurs. In these cases, monitoring and inspection are often inadequate and labour laws are poorly enforced, the report also said. 

In addition, penalties for child labour violations can only be imposed after a lengthy legal process and, when courts do impose them, the fines are too low to deter child labour law violations. 

Moreover, the government did not publicly release information on its criminal law enforcement efforts related to child labour, the report continued.

Apparel brands, retailers, workers organisations, and the government with assistance from the International Labor Organisation, have made some significant improvements in building safety since 2013 through the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.

This five-year agreement was signed in the immediate aftermath to the Rana Plaza building collapse on 24 April 2013, which killed 1,133 workers and critically injured thousands more.

Today some garment workers in Bangladesh continue to experience working conditions indicative of forced labour, such as excessive hours (beyond the legal limit), forced overtime, and withheld compensation, the US report noted.

Furthermore, supervisors commonly subjected workers to violence and harassment for not meeting production targets, the report said.

Women are often victims of physical and sexual abuse, including as punishment for not meeting targets. Considering all these factors, the reality is that the RMG sector has workers who are involuntarily working under threat or menace of a penalty, it noted.

The report also said sadly, the workers of Bangladesh face challenges at worksites that are exacerbated by the impacts of climate change.

In addition to the intense mental and physical abuse that garment workers in Bangladesh already experience, sea level rise and extreme weather events resulting from climate change are increasingly becoming a threat to workers in Bangladesh, the report also said.

Climate change is expected to have serious impacts on forced labour conditions.