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Slaving for cookware

Children toil in aluminium hell, work 13 hours a day for meagre wages

Emran Hossain
An overpowering stench of chemicals and acid hangs in the air as children aged between 10 and 18 work at Bandhu Metal Factory in Nurbagh in Kamrangirchar.
Without slightest precautionary' measures, the children work at the tin-roofed congested factory and inhale huge aluminium dust 13 hours a day.
At noon, four children among a group of ten workers were seen working busily. All the four were operating a heavy spinning machine in bare hands and face.
The children start their work at 6:00am without any fixed wage. They get between Tk 200 and Tk 400 a week depending not on their work but on their age.
The factory is so crammed with machines and raw materials that the kids can hardly move. Besides, it bums inside in high
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temperature, which is almost unbearable even for the grown-ups.
The same working condition prevails in all neighbouring factories. Workers, even little children, were seen handling acid and alkali in bare hands at nearby Shuvo plastic factory.
Six out of 14 workers are children there and no-one seems to be concerned about their safety.
"The present situation of child labour is so deplorable and dangerous. We don't have any specific plan yet how to address the wide range of problems in this regard,” State Minister for Labour and Employment Monnujan Sufian told The Daily Star.
"However, we'll try to control the situation in phases in future," she added.
Back at the plastic factory, 10-year old Sayedur describes his ordeal. "I got my smallest finger cut after a round piece of aluminium fell on it. I face such risk every day only for Tk 250 a week."
"We pay the children on the basis of their performance and naturally kids of minor age are not skilled enough," says Mobarak, owner of Shuvo plastic.
"Aluminium particles are solid. If these particles go through the respiratory tunnel, the children will definitely suffer from lung diseases and breathing problems," says Prof Nilufar
Nahar of department of chemistry, Dhaka University.
"Inhaling such particles can cause chronic bronchitis and pneumoconiosis, affecting expandability of the lung and crippling the respiratory system," observes Dr Kazi S Bennoor ofBSMMU.
"Consumption of colouring pigment may cause asthma and lung cancer in the long run," he adds.
According to a survey titled "National Child Labour Survey: 2002-2003", there are around 7.4 million working children including 3.2 million child labourers in the country.
The survey states that 1.3 million of the surveyed children are engaged in hazardous work, defined as working more than 43 hours a week, which is considered to be detrimental to their physical and mental health.
Experts say the number of children engaged in hazardous work would be much higher if the sectors deemed to be hazardous have been clearly defined.
Another astonishing matter is that although involvement of children in unhygienic workplaces is evident and widely reported, neither the government nor the NGOs have taken any steps to assess and look after the children suffering from diseases affecting them in the workplaces.