Child Labour in Keraniganj
Pioneering the Path to a Child Labor-Free Future
Key Highlights:
- Government Commitment: The Ministry of Labour and Employment, in collaboration with UNICEF Bangladesh, is spearheading this project.
- Multi-Stakeholder Approach: A national action plan has been developed to address the root causes of child labor.
- Focus on Prevention: The initiative aims to prevent child labor through education, awareness campaigns, and social safety nets.
- Rehabilitation and Reintegration: Efforts are underway to rehabilitate and reintegrate child laborers into mainstream society.
Key Statistics
- Prevalence: Approximately 47% of workers in the Keraniganj apparel hub are children aged between 5 and 17 years.
- Number of Child Laborers: Over 120,000 children are engaged in child labor within the Keraniganj industrial area.
- Hazardous Working Conditions: 95% of factories in Keraniganj operate in hazardous conditions, exposing children to various health risks.
- Low Wages and Poor Working Conditions: Child laborers often receive minimal wages and work in cramped, unsanitary conditions.
- Educational Disruption: Child labor significantly impacts children’s education, limiting their future opportunities.
Insights:
- Age Range: Children as young as 5 years old are employed in the garment industry.
- Working Hours: Child laborers often work long hours, exceeding legal limits.
- Health Risks: Exposure to hazardous chemicals, excessive noise, and poor working conditions can lead to severe health problems.
- Social and Psychological Impact: Child labor can lead to social isolation, depression, and anxiety.
The Impact of Child Labor in Keraniganj
Individual Impact:
- Health Risks: Children exposed to hazardous working conditions are at risk of developing various health problems, including respiratory illnesses, musculoskeletal disorders, and mental health issues.
- Educational Disruption: Child labor prevents children from attending school, limiting their future opportunities.
- Social and Psychological Trauma: Children who work long hours in harsh conditions often suffer from social isolation, depression, and anxiety.
Societal Impact:
- Economic Loss: Child labor hinders human capital development, impacting the overall economic growth of the region.
- Social Inequality: Child labor perpetuates poverty and inequality, creating a vicious cycle.
- Damaged Reputation: The prevalence of child labor tarnishes the reputation of the garment industry and Bangladesh’s overall image.
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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
Where is child labour on the rise?
Are boys and girls subjected to different kinds of child labour?
- Boys are more prone to work in construction, mining, and manufacturing.
- Girls in child labour are more likely to be engaged in services, including domestic work.
According to the latest data (early 2020):
- Roughly 63 million girls and 97 million boys are in child labour worldwide.
- The gender gap grows with age: boys are about twice as likely as girls to be in child labour by their mid-teens (15 to 17 years old).
What forms of child labour are most common?
- Agriculture: Around 70% of children engaged in child labour work on farms or in agricultural activities, many of whom are very young.
- Family-based labour: Approximately 72% of child labour occurs within the family unit, primarily on family farms or small family enterprises. While family-based environments are often perceived as safer, they are frequently hazardous to a child’s health, safety, or moral development.
What are the greatest risks associated with child labour?
- Agriculture: Exposure to dangerous chemicals, machinery, and extreme weather conditions.
- Mining: Working in underground shafts, hauling heavy loads, and using toxic chemicals to separate minerals.
- Fisheries: Long periods at sea under severe weather, away from families.
- Street Work: Exposure to traffic, fumes, and the risk of illicit activities.
Is the world on track to eliminate child labour?
The world is not yet on track to eliminate child labour. Without accelerated action, an estimated 125 million children will still be in child labour by 2030 – the global deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Child Labour in Keraniganj
Convention No. 29, in Article 2(2), also provides for exceptions to the definition of forced labour by specifically referring to five situations in which compulsory labour may be imposed:
- work of a purely military character exacted in virtue of compulsory military service;
- normal civic obligations;
- work or service exacted from any person as a consequence of a conviction in a court of law, carried out under the supervision of a public authority;
- work exacted in cases of emergency, such as wars or natural calamities; and
- minor communal services in the direct interest of the community involved.
Each of these exceptions is subject to the observance of certain conditions that define their limits. If these limits are not respected, this can amount to a situation of compulsory labour imposed by the State.
The Abolition of Forced Labour Convention No. 105 adopted by the ILO in 1957 primarily concerns forced labour imposed by state authorities. It prohibits specifically the use of forced labour:
- as punishment for the expression of political views,
- for the purposes of economic development,
- as a means of labour discipline,
- as a punishment for participation in strikes,
- as a means of racial, religious or other discrimination.
“Forced labour”, “human trafficking” (also called “trafficking in persons”) and “slavery” are terms that are often used interchangeably. However, while these concepts do have significant overlap, they are conceptually distinct and each has a clear definition in international law.
What is trafficking in persons?
The definition of trafficking in persons, provided by the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000 (UN Protocol), in Article 3(a), encompasses three elements:
- Acts: Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons.
- Means: The means that are used to accomplish one of the prohibited acts; namely, the use of threat or of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person.
- Purpose: Whether this act, using the above means, was conducted for the purpose of exploitation. The UN Protocol provides that “exploitation” includes “at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs”.
What is slavery?
“Slavery” is defined under Article 1(1) of the League of Nations Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery (the Slavery Convention), 1926, as “the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised”. Slavery is an institution of complete ownership, in which an individual is subjected to the full control of the slave owner who can make decisions for this individual on education (attending school or not), work (type and conditions) or even private life (who to marry). The prohibition of slavery in international law has achieved “jus cogens” status, meaning that all states accept it as a principle that cannot be derogated from. Nevertheless, and although slavery is prohibited by law in most countries, the practice or its vestiges remain in certain countries. In most cases, people subjected to slavery will find themselves in a situation of psychological, economic and social dependence. They have no option than work for their “master” and will fall under the definition of forced labour provided by the Convention No. 29.
Based on the definitions provided by the related international treaties, there is a significant overlap between forced labour, human trafficking and slavery. It is important for stakeholders involved in developing and implementing NAPs to understand these concepts and their precise scope.
FAQ on Child Labour in Keraniganj
Forced labour and slavery are not a thing of the past. They have ancient roots in history and still exist today in many different forms. In fact, there are more people in slavery today than at any other time in history. Almost 50 million people around the world were victims of modern slavery in 2021, including about 28 million in forced labour, and 22 million in forced marriages. If they all lived together in a single city, it would be one of the biggest cities in the world.
Forced labour has grown in recent years. A simple comparison with the previous estimates indicates an increase of 2.7 million in the number people in forced labour between 2016 and 2021, which translates to a rise in the prevalence of forced labour from 3.4 to 3.5 per thousand people in the world.
Forced labour affects in one way or another every country in the world; it is a truly global problem. Statistics on prevalence are highly significant since they indicate the level of risk that people face in different regions.
Asia and the Pacific is host to more than half of the global total (15.1 million), followed by Europe and Central Asia (4.1 million), Africa (3.8 million), the Americas (3.6 million), and the Arab States (0.9 million). But this regional ranking changes considerably when forced labour is expressed as a proportion of the population. By this measure, forced labour is highest in the Arab States (5.3 per thousand people), followed by Europe and Central Asia (4.4 per thousand), the Americas and Asia and the Pacific (both at 3.5 per thousand), and Africa (2.9 per thousand).
Forced labour affects all population groups, young and old, male and female. But some groups are more vulnerable than others.
Women and girls in forced labour are much more likely than their male counterparts to be in domestic work, while men in forced labour are much more likely to be in the construction sector. Women are more likely to be coerced through wage non-payment and abuse of vulnerability, and men through threats of violence and financial penalties. Women are also more likely than men to be subjected to physical and sexual violence and threats against family members.
Migrant workers face a higher risk of forced labour than other workers. The forced labour prevalence of adult migrant workers is more than three times higher than that of adult non-migrant workers. This figure makes clear that when migrant workers are not protected by law or are unable to exercise their rights, migration is irregular or poorly governed, or where recruitment practices are unfair or unethical, migration can lead to situations of vulnerability to forced labour.
Most forced labour occurs in the private economy. Eighty-six per cent of forced labour cases are imposed by private actors – 63 per cent in the private economy in sectors other than commercial sexual exploitation and 23 per cent in forced commercial sexual exploitation. State-imposed forced labour accounts for the remaining 14 per cent of people in forced labour.
Forced labour affects everyone. Even if you’re not a victim of forced labour, you’re still affected by it. Businesses, for example, face unfair competition from unscrupulous companies who reap the profits of forced labour. That may put pressure on them to lower wages or cut benefits. Meanwhile governments lose out on precious tax revenue while facing huge legal costs from prosecuting forced labour cases – money which could be spent on education, healthcare or social protection.
Forced labour affects everyone. Even if you’re not a victim of forced labour, you’re still affected by it. Businesses, for example, face unfair competition from unscrupulous companies who reap the profits of forced labour. That may put pressure on them to lower wages or cut benefits. Meanwhile governments lose out on precious tax revenue while facing huge legal costs from prosecuting forced labour cases – money which could be spent on education, healthcare or social protection.
Want to know the situation of forced labour in your country? Check its dedicated profile on the Forced Labour Observatory.