Child labour in Bangladesh

Life can be harsh and cruel for a child when the world abuses a child in a hundred ways like using it as labour without the slightest of remorse. Child labour is prevalent in our country. Although the government is pledge-bound to eliminate child labour from the country, in reality it is far from being achieved. Bangladesh passed a labour law setting the minimum legal age for employment at 14 in 2006 but the authority concerned seems to have no headache to strictly apply the law in Bangladesh.
 Since the most obvious reason for child labour is poverty which compels parents to send their children to jobs than to schools, it is almost impossible to reduce child labour without containing poverty. Rather the government should impose strict restrictions on  employment of children to some hazardous works like ship breaking and recycling operations, prostitution, manufacturing, mining, stone welding, van pulling, electrical work and many more.
Awareness raising programmes should be run by the government and the media intensively to create realisation on the part of parents that an innocent child should not be exploited simply for profit or money. Mandating schooling for all children must be ensured through incentives and strict monitoring and creation of income generating opportunities for parents should be given priority so that the poor parents do not need to rely on their children's income.  
Manabika Debnath
Dept of Marketing
Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur