various occupations. The employers, owners, and managers and
concerned authorities prefer to engage children at work as they can
easily be exploited to work longer hours with minimum wages.
The socio-economic adversity also affects the child labour situation in
Bangladesh. In case of death of a head of household, the family finds it
very difficult to meet the basic needs, let alone children‟s education. In
case parents get separated, their children face extreme hardships in
managing bread and butter. Nevertheless, poverty stricken families,
usually show less interest in adopting family planning measures which
ultimately turns a family large in size with lot of sufferings in maintaining
the family.
Moreover, widespread unemployment, social insecurity, resource
scarcity are the underlying factors of migration from rural to urban areas.
Natural calamities like riverbank erosion, floods, droughts, storms and
tidal surges, earthquakes etc. drive children towards greater risks of
being engaged in physical labour.
Due to little learning, poverty and lack of awareness, many parents
consider education as a non gainful activity and that they lose their
patience to continue their children‟s education for a continuous period of
10 or 15 years. Child labour is also increasing due to non availability of
education materials, lack of opportunity for education and indifferent
attitude of parents regarding the negative impact of child labour. Due to
the culture of excessive dependence on the domestic help and
conventional way of living in urban life, even the attentive pupils of rural
areas are picked up and brought to the town for domestic work.
4. Child Labour: Constitutional and Legal Position
(a) The fundamental rights of the citizens including the children are
spelled out in the Constitution of the People‟s Republic of Bangladesh.
Articles 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20, constituting the fundamental
principles of state policy of the Constitution have laid emphasis on
ensuring compulsory primary education for the children as well as
adopting special measures for the children who are physically and
mentally challenged. The Constitution has guaranteed the fundamental
rights of citizens in Articles 27, 28, 29, 31, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40 and 41.
Particularly, forced labour is completely prohibited and access to legal
remedy is assured in case of violation of fundamental rights.
(b) After independence, Bangladesh enacted the Children Act 1974 (Act
XXXIX of 1974) for the protection of the children and their rights. It