***The child labourers face multiple problems. They are most vulnerable to job related hazards and most prone to accidents and injuries. They are often low paid and abused by elders in the workplace. Most working children have weak food security.***

IT was around 12 o'clock midnight. 31st December.

1999. While the rich Gulshan kids were welcoming the new millennium through various celebrations, another Gulshan resident was not that fortunate. Tuli. a young industrial worker residing in Gulshan lake slum was in no mood of celebrating the new millennium after a long day of back-breaking work. Rather, she preferred to have a deep sleep so that the fol-lowing day she could engage in life struggle with renewed vigour. Besides the new millennium was apparently of no significance to her. For her. the first day of the new millennium would be another monotonous routine of dawn to dusk hard labour like the days of the H.e-vious millennium.

Tuli. Jasim. Khaled. Fatema all are child workers and share more or less the same reaction. Jasim. a canteen boy feels that last year was bad and this year will be worse. However, the most interesting thing is. though they know about the arrival of a New Year. They do not understand at all the millennium thing that had apparently engulfed ’civilised' world.

In the current write up. I am going to shed light on the current state of child labour in Bangladesh and the kind of attention it requires in the new

millennium.

There are about 7 million working children in Bangladesh aged between 5-14. This accounts for 20 percent of ail children in this age group and 12 percent of the labour force. According to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) of 1990-91. 65 percent were male and 36 percent were female. Though child labourers are found to work in all sectors of economy and in all types of economic activities. they predominate in the informal sector consisting of agriculture, small enterprises. industries, various trades and sendees. Of them. 27 types of economic activities are considered “hazardous"

Bangladesh is a small country of 130 million people. Our per capita income is $ 210. it is one of the ten least of the least developed countries. Because of disadvanced economy, job opportunity is very limited. Generally. large number of elders are unemployed and those who are employed are often low paid. Therefore, children of poor families have to start working in underage to lessen the burden of the family, Therefore. most child workers are either school dropouts or have never attended scnool.

The child labourers face multiple problems. They are

most vulnerable to job related hazards and most prone to accidents and Injuries. They are often low paid and abused by elders in the workplace. Most working children have weak food security.

All over the world efforts are underway to ban child labour in order relieve them of their agonies. But this is nothing but a utopia. If the economic situation of general people of Bangladesh does not improve substantially, child labour will continue. So. as long as economic situation does not change qualitatively, the best help for child labourers would be to take such steps that eases their lives instead of preventing them from .earning their own bread. With this end. the following steps are recommended.

First of all there should a national school education system that will render technical training along with general education. This will discourage them from dropping out as they will not have to be anxious about employment. The technical training will well-equip them for the job market.

Secondly a system of health care should be Installed for child laourers. They should be subject to regular health checkup and free treatment.

Thirdly, child labourers

should be given safety training and safety gear. There should be an appropriate insurance system to cover them during any accident.

Fourthly, indiscriminate implementation of child labourer’s rights as both children and labourers. All labour unions should have wings exclusively for looking after the interests of child labourers.

We are used to hearing different types of rhetorical slogans in the last millennium. These promised the attainment of health/education for all by 2000. But none of these could be achieved Those who are thinking of eliminating child labour •shortly should know that still there is no indication of drastic change in the socio-economic condition of developing countries including Bangladesh. There is thus no possibility of outdating child labour in near future. We should therefore put our efforts on improving their lot i.e. their health, education, food, nutrition, security, entertainment etc. Only this way we can bring a qualitative change in the life of working children and make the new millennium meaningful for them.

The author is a MSS student. Department of International Relations. University of Dhaka.