Hazardous child labour elimination by 2015 seems unlikely

Kamrun Nahar Bangladesh's target of elimination of hazardous child labour by 2015 seems unrealistic as the government is yet to finalise its plan of action for child labour elimination, experts and activists say. They identified lack of political will, weak institutions for implementation of its plans and bureaucratic insincerity as major obstacles to the way to eradicating child labour. Moreover, the government is preparing child labour elimination plan based on old statistics of 2003 that says the country has some 3.2 million child labourers, of whom 1.3 million are engaged in hazardous jobs. Ninety-five per cent of child labourers work in informal sectors. Of them, 60 per cent work in agriculture sector. "Preparing a plan based on old data would hardly help achieve the target," said Programme Officer of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Sharfuddin Khan, requesting the government to update the existing database for sincere implementation of any sincere and realistic programme on this issue. The ILO official is hopeful of the government's commitment of eradicating child labour while expressing his concern about the challenges the government will face without due preparation. Gender segregated data, rural-urban scenario and sector or area-wise updated database are essential for implementing sectoral or area-wise approach, he added. Emranul Huq Chowdhury, president of Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum, a platform of 235 non-government organisations working in child rights sector, has observed that the present number of child labourers shown by the government is not accurate. "The present number of 7.4 million economically active children is not correct as the agriculture and domestic labourers are not included here. The exact figure will be much bigger," he said. He said the target of eliminating child labour from the country by 2015 is impossible but with sincere efforts it can be achieved some times after 2020 if the poverty reduction remains at 1.5 per cent per year. Experts said the government has failed to prepare a list of hazardous works for children and its statements seem to be leap service instead of doing real works as it has also failed to prepare a comprehensive plan and a budget. The government must scale up its activities towards elimination of hazardous child labour from the country, they added. The government, so far, held four workshops in association with the non-government organisations to debate the national plan of action on implementing child labour elimination policy, and appointed BRAC University as the consultant to this end since it was announced in 2010 that Bangladesh would eliminate child labour by 2015, especially the worst forms of labour. Asked about the progress made so far, Labour and Employment Secretary Shafique Alam Mehdi said the government was sincerely working to achieve the target it had announced. He said the government has listed 36 sectorsactivities as hazardous for child workers, but the list has not yet been sent to the United Nations in compliance with the ILO convention 182. "We have short-listed 36 hazardous jobs for children, which we will place before the Tripartite Consultative Council (TCC) meeting for further discussion," the secretary said without mentioning the timeline for holding meeting of the council. He, however, is hopeful about finalisation of the draft action plan by December. The minister for labour and employment heads the 60-member council, also represented by company owners and workers. The committee could not hold a meeting for more than one year. The draft plan of action is being prepared for fixing up the activities by different ministries and agencies which will work to implement the child labour elimination policy. The secretary believes that the target can be achieved depending on resource. The government is trying to mobilise resources both domestically and internationally, he said. Ministry sources said the government is doing its best although child labour elimination is still not in the priority list. Asked about its plan based on old statistics, the secretary said it was not the responsibility of his ministry. "Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is responsible for conducting survey, ask them why they did not update the figure," he said. Contrary to the secretary's opinion, experts say resource is not any problem rather it is the government's lack of sincerity in mobilising resource for eliminating child labour. Besides, there are weakness of institutional capacities, lack of political will and lax implementation of laws prohibiting child labour. International Labour Organisation has requested the government to launch a survey in 2012 on child labour, but the government representatives were unaware of any specific year. However, sources said the process of a child labour survey has been started by the BBS, which is expected to be finished by June, 2012. The ministry sources said the government was in a process to select NGOs to implement its Eradication of Hazardous Child Labour in Bangladesh projects as it had allocated some 10 million dollars in 2010-2011 budget to cover only 50,000 children in hazardous jobs. This is the third phase of government-run project. The three-year project will be implemented in six divisional cities to provide non-formal education and vocational training to children and financial assistance to the guardians of working children. But child rights activists say that the experience in the last two phases is not good. Corruption marred the process of NGO selections, they alleged. Preferring anonymity, an expert said labour inspectors should visit these workplaces for monitoring, but there are only 72 inspectors in the labour department. "There was a proposal to recruit inspectors but no progress is visible in this connection. Also the punishment is insignificant. If there is no monitoring how can any legal framework be applied," he added. Many national and international NGOs including Save the Children and ILO work on child labour issues. ILO has projects on 28 hazardous works in their Urban Informal Economy (UIE) project, with Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) as the partner organisation. DCC also has been working as a regulatory body by imposing a condition in trade licence where employers employing children in hazardous labour will lose their trade licence.