Child Domestic Workers

aishawelfaretrust.org/childinbangladesh.htm

Child Domestic service is a widespread practice in Bangladesh.The majority of child domestics tend to be 12 and 17 years old.But children as young as 5 or 6 years old can also be found working.A survey of child domestic workers found that 38 percent were 11 to 13 years old and nearly 24 percent were 5 to 10 years old.Child domestics works long hours,getting up well before their employers and going to bed long after them.on 50 percent domestic workers work 12- 14 hours a day.Irrespective of their gender,Child domestic carry out all sorts of household work.Boys often perform tasks like going to the grocery,cleaning the drain,talking the garbage to roadside bins,washing the car and sell nuts etc.On the other hand,girls have to iron the cloths,attend phone calls and serves the guests.The child domestic workers are often the least paid in the society,their remuneration ranging from 80 taka to 400 taka per month.In most of the cases,they hand over all their earnings to their parents,leaving nothing for themselves.

Working Environment

I think,every worker’s working environment should be satisfying and preferable for business.If any Factory following this policies,it may be good for workers.Factory follows the factory law about child labor and does not take any child labor,which are under 18 years of ages.Factory does not forced to work anybody.Factory pays at least minium wage as per the current minimum wages ordinance.Also provide yearly bonus,increments and some entertainment things like picnic.Factory does not does not use threats,any physical,sexual or verbal abuse.Factory main tains reasonable employee works hour based on the limits on regular and over time hours allowed by local laws.Factory pays wages and benefits without regard to race,color,gender,nationality,religion,age and marital status.Factory recognizes and respects the right of employee to freedom of association and collective bargaining.Factory maintains a safe,clean and healthy environment.Also,free giving treatment to workers.Factory continously monitors production process and takes step to the negative impacts.

Stop Child Labor

Stop Child Labor.It is a great cursed in the world.A group of 60 working children from 12 organizations,their major problems at a workshop organized by Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum(BSAF) with the support from UNICEF at the WVA auditorium on 12.11.2001.Children described their basic problems :-Can not continue regular studies doing work.Can not watch entertainment programmes on television.Do not get adequate salary for work.Subjected to hazardous form of labor forcefully.Do not get medical facilities properly.Do not get food of adequate national value.Children are forcefully trafficked out of the country.The physical handicapped do not adequate attention.Subjected to physically torture by employers and anti-socials.

The working child population of the country demanded the following essential facilities from the new Government of the country :-Free education for the disadvantaged children.Family pension was to be arranged for the working children.Compensation has to be provided by the employers in the case of accident during work.Essential requirements like food,clothing,lodging,education and medical treatment have to be provided by the government free of cost.Stop child trafficking,oppression of woman and children and all forms of terrorism.Increase salary for jobs,ensure of proper salary in time.Stop child labor.Stop forceful employment of young girls in sex-trade.Ensure proper healthy environment at home and workplace.Provide recreational facilities for children.

Trafficking in Bangladesh

http://www.aparajeyo.org/programs.html

Trafficking in woman and children within the territory of Bangladesh also a common phenomenon.Uneducated and vulnerable woman and children deprived of financial,legal,social support and opportunities easily become victims of internal and cross border trafficking.Most of the children and girls are sold in the brothels engaged in prostitution or in cage brothels in the receiving countries like India,Pakistan and Middle-Eastern country.The victims are in the being high risk HIV positives.There are two types trafficking in Bangladesh.One is internal and other is cross border trafficking.In the case of internal trafficking girls and children’s are often take away from their homes through abduction,on false promise of better life in good employment.on the other hand cross border level,they are smuggled by the gang of traffickers to place them further destinations such as India,Pakistan and other Middle Easters countries where their ultimate fate is a life of sexual exploitation,abuse and other forms of bounded labor.Tiny boys who are trafficked to the Middle East become camel jockeys,which is very risky and hazardous job.The net workers of traffickers in Bangladesh are well organized with different settings of people like local political leaders,smugglers,anti-social activists and some low enforcement personnel also.

Trafficking

Trafficking in woman and children is one of the fastest growing criminal activities in the world,behind drugs and arms.A report recently published by US Department of state has revealed that most of the trafficking incidents have occurred in South,South-East Asia,East-Europe,Latin America and in the poverty-stricken Africa.About one million woman and children are trafficked every year from these regions to the west and the other places.It is a grave concern for the human community that 70% of them are woman,aged between 14 to 24 and that each of them is abused sexually five times in a day.So first of all,It can be considered as a violation of human rights and secondly as a way of spreading HIV across the globe.

Organizations working with child workers

www.ucepbd.org/target/index.htm

The plight of child workers in Bangladesh attracted the attention of quite a few philanthropists from both home and abroad.They initiated programs in the non-government sector to promote welfare of the working children.The most notable of them,a New Zealander,Mr.L.N.Cheyne,on his visit to war-ravaged Bangladesh in 1972,was particularly moved by the miseries of child workers in Dhaka,subsequently he founded an international NGO,underprivileged children’s educational Programs(UCEP),as a beacon hope for working children.UCEP,from a modest beginning as a provider of general education on a limited scale in Dhaka has by emerged as the leading national NGO promoting the cause of child workers in Bangladesh.UCEP pursues,”an integrated strategy of human resources development,incorporating general education,followed by skill training and employment placement services”.UCEP currently operates 3 general schools,3 technical schools,5 para-trade training centers and has total enrollment of around 22,000.each school operates three shifts,each of two and half hour’s duration to allow the working children to pursue education while working.

Poor Child Workers

Child service is a widespread practice in Bangladesh.They are so poor.Although children are employed as domestic throughout the country,They have overwhelmingly high concentration in the cities.Employers in the urban areas usually recruit children from their village home through family,friends or contacts.Most of the domestic child workers comes from vulnerable families,many of them being orphans children.A good number of them are from having the single-parent families.Child domestic work very long hours,getting up well before their employers and going to bed long after them.On an average 5 percent children workers work 13-14 hours in a day.The domestic child workers works in oil,soap,towel,comb,cloths company.Boys often perform tasks like going to grocery,cleaning the drain,taking the garbage to roadside bins washing the cars.

Invisible Yet Everywhere

There are hundreds of millions of children and young people in the world imprisoned not in reminds home but in physical labor more permanents than steel bars and iron locks alone could create.These are children and young people.This activities harm their bodies,minds,spirits and above all a good and prosperous future.Working children have become an integral part of Bangladeshi society.A child worker considered another cheap and easily controlled worker in the labor force.Poverty,illiteracy and Child labor go hand in hand.A child earnings have become a necessity for those families which are struggling to make ends up.The child has no alternative.The lack of quality education and the pitiable conditions of available schools is no incentive for a child to quit work and join school.In addition,children become the victims violence,exploition and abuse they can result in physical and physiological disabilities.Also children become a prisoner twice.The child is caught in the conflict between right to life and the fight to earn versus the acceptable norms of survival.

Slavery

Slavery social and legal system permitting human beings to be bought and sold in the formal market and forced to work for the purchasers as their private property.The rise of free labor ,gradual industrialization and humanist movements from the second half of the nineteenth century made slavery gradually unpopular and socially unacceptable.Bengal free from slavery from the early twentieth century.As free labor was not available in the market ,socially and economically weaker elements in the society were reduced to slave by in order to sustain production and maintain their dominance.To continue and sustain public works like constructions and maintenance of public buildings ,dams,bridges,highways,the city needed big labor force.People marginalized by famines,wars and caste system were the main victims of slavery.Many of the orphans,paupers,widows also ended up on the market.Thugs and other criminal elements kidnapped children for selling them.There were two dominant categories of slaves:Domestic slave and Agrestic slave.Most agrestic slavery was a common features of in bengla from ancient times of the end of nineteenth century.Today,we can not see slavery,but still many peoples and children works like slavery.

Different types of Child Labor

Children do different types of work.Breaking bricks may cause damage to the fingers and for that a rubber made finger glove could be worn.Chips of brick may jump into eye and cause harm.Another job is welding.This work is inappropriate for children.When they works for welding,they uses protective glass for the eye.Another work is motor mechanic.This working children working with chemical and acid.Acid used in car battery.If this acid went into the eye than that would destroy the vision.Another work is carrying heavy load or bricks up the stairs.Some people said,they should not come into this type of works.Going up the stairs and getting the dried cloths from the roof was considered as hazardous.They felt this was dangerous.