22/07/21

‘Child labour rampant in Bangladesh’s leather industry’

leather workers
Young trainees in the leather industry in Bangladesh. A new study reports that the leather industry in the country routinely employs children. Copyright:ILO Asia-Pacific,(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). This image has been cropped.

Speed read

  • 160 million children subjected to child labour globally in 2020
  • 孟加拉国的卢克rative leather industry routinely employs children
  • Children forced to do hazardous work for a pittance, says study

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[SYDNEY] Children as young as seven years are working with hazardous chemicals, heavy machinery or carrying heavy loads, endangering their health and lives in Bangladesh’s lucrative leather industry, according to astudy.

在全球,关于160 million childrenwere subjected tochildlabour at the beginning of 2020, withnine million additional children由于影响COVID-19, according to UNICEF. Almost half of them were in hazardous work that directly imperils theirhealthand moral development, the UN children’s agency said.

The study, published this month and led by the发展研究所(IDS), a UK-based international developmentpolicythink tank, comes as the world marks 2021 as theInternational Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.

Researchers found children aged seven to 17 working 12 to 14 hours, six days a week in almost all processes along the leather supply chain – from animal slaughter and skinning to dyeing, waste disposal and manufacturing of leather products and by-products such as glue and meat.

该报告中的案例研究包括一个在皮革手套制造业中工作的八岁女孩。她不得不使用锋利的设备切割皮革碎片,并在铣削过程中用脚软化。在另一种情况下,当他们从商店携带的盐酸桶中携带到制革厂打破时,两名16至17岁的制革工人遭受了严重的烧伤。

“The leather supply chain is highly complex as are the reasons why children engage in the most dangerous forms of labour,” says A.K.M. Maksud, the study’s lead author and executive director atGrambangla Unnayan Committee.

“We found that it is not only employees that are drawing children into the worst forms of child labour, but families running small businesses that depend on cheap labour to sustain their livelihoods.”

“We found that it is not only employees that are drawing children into the worst forms of child labour, but families running small businesses that depend on cheap labour to sustain their livelihoods”

A.K.M.马克苏德Grambangla Unnayan Committee

Grambangla Unnayan Committee andChildHope UK- 这是童工的一部分:南亚和东南亚的行动研究创新(CLARISSA) programme led by IDS – conducted the study mostly in Dhaka during May–August 2020.

Video credit:童劳动行动研究创新(Clarissa).

On average, children interviewed in the study earned US$90.80 per month and the lowest monthly income was just US$11.80.

“Most of the children said that scolding, threats, and other forms of verbal abuse were very common. Some reported being physically abused by their employers for being slow or making mistakes. But local industry associations insist that their businesses are strictly regulated and that the worst forms of child labour do not exist in their sector,” Maksud adds.

The leather sector is the second largest export industry after readymade garments in Bangladesh. In 2017, the leather industry accounted for 3.5 per cent of the country’s annual exports or US$1.2 billion, according to anAsian Development Bankreport. The industry directly or indirectly employs 850,000 workers, the report says.

Danny Burns, CLARISSA programme director says: “We work closely with children because good solutions, which have a positive impact on their lives, need their involvement.

“We will also be running actionresearchgroups later this year to explore how to effectively engage small business owners in the informal economy as they are a crucial part of the picture.”

Bangladesh has ratified theInternational Labour Organisation’s Worst Forms of Child LabourConvention, but it has not ratified the最低年龄公约.

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Zama Neff, director of the children’srightsdivision at人权观察说:“这份新报告特别及时 - 去年甚至在大流行之前surgedfor the first time in two decades. This doesn’t have to happen.

Governmentsshould use cash allowances to help families meet their basic needs without sending their children to work. Cash transfers have been successful in many places but 1.3 billion children, mostly in Asia and Africa, aren’t covered.”

建议by Human Rights Watch to Bangladesh’s ministry of labour and employment include rigorously enforcing existing laws, prohibiting hazardous child labour in tanneries, with monitoring and unannounced site inspections, and issuing penalties against employers who violate the law.

“We urge the government to immediately implement an effective removal programme for child labourers in tanneries that provides access toeducation, including non-formal education and skills developmenttraining;Neff补充说,替代收入生成的机会在适当的和社会经济赋权计划的情况下为他们的家庭提供。” Neff补充道。

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk.