DHAKA, Nov 22, 2020 (BSS) – The whole world is now in deep crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic. Different development programmes are now at stake. Like other countries, this fatal infectious disease has largely affected country’s economy.
The child labour issue of the country, which is one of the incumbent government’s priority basis works, now appeared as the matter of concern due to the outbreak of Coronavirus.
Experts and people, working on the child rights here, believe that the economic catastrophe caused by the COVID-19 could lead to a new spread of child labor in Bangladesh.
“The COCVID-19 crisis could hamper Bangladesh’s plan to eliminate various forms of child labor, especially risky child labor, by 2025, undermining one of the promises to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” said the Education and Development Foundation (Educo), a child education development agency.
The country director of Educo Bangladesh, Abdul Hamid said, “Many family members have lost their jobs due to COVID-19 outbreak.”
He said many families, who were become destitute before the recent Corona lockdown, are now passing a dehumanized life as they have become completely jobless or unearned.
“There are a lot of kids who have never worked before . . . but they are now forced to go for the work only to give support to their respective families,” he feared.
According to a new report of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said the number of child laborers has dropped by about 94 million since 2000, but that the progress is now at risk.
Like any other disaster, children are the most affected by the crisis caused by the COVID-19, the Educo observed, saying that all children employed in the child labor and their families must bring under the official coverage of the social protection program.
The government needs to take steps to revise and implement the National Action Plan on Child Labor, it said, suggesting that the government and civil society and child development agencies or organizations must work together to prevent and eliminate existing child labor.
Educo mentioned that to protect child laborers from the outbreak of COVID-19, the government should take pragmatic steps to provide them with financial incentives from the Workers’ Welfare Fund under the Ministry of Labor and Employment.
“We need to be more proactive in fulfilling our humanitarian responsibilities towards disadvantaged children,” it added.
As part of the programmes undertaken to overcome the existing Corona crisis in different sectors, the incumbent government has given special emphasis on preventing child labor by promoting the child education throughout the country.
The present government is implementing a special program at a cost of Taka 284.49 crore to get rid of risky child labor by 2021 and make Bangladesh free from the curse of child labour by 2025, according to the ministry concerned.
“Work on this project has already started. In the meantime about one lakh children have been brought back from risky child labor through this program,” it said, adding that readymade garment (RMG) factories have now been freed from child labor.
Social Welfare Minister Nuruzzaman Ahmed said the government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced to reduce the poverty rate to 12.30% and the extreme poverty rate to 4.50% by 2023-24.
To eliminate the child labor, he said the present government has undertaken a comprehensive and multifaceted program for the protection and development of the rights of the disadvantaged, “physically challenged” or “differently abled” and backward communities.
Shamsun Nahar Bhuiyan MP, a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of the Ministry of Labor and Employment, said that the government is working to illuminate country’s child labor as it (govt.) is internationally committed to ensuring universal primary education in the country.
The lawmaker said various steps have been taken in the field of primary and non-formal education in line with human resource development and poverty reduction strategy of the government.