Preventing and Eliminating the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Selected Formal
and Informal Sectors in Bangladesh
| Time-frame |
Donor(s) |
Duration: 4 years
Starting date: September 2000 |
US Department of Labour (USDOL) |
In September 2000, a four-year project funded by the US Department of Labour (USDOL) and addressing
the worst forms of child labour in five selected sectors (bidis, construction, leather tanneries, child
domestic workers and matches) has started. This sectoral project focuses on children working in
hazardous occupations under the most intolerable conditions, ranging from exposure to chemicals and
other harmful substances to them being subjected to long, tedious working hours. Building on the
experience of the BGMEA/ILO/UNICEF Project as well as taking a big leap in the overall efforts of IPEC
in Bangladesh, this project aims to remove about 30,887 children from hazardous occupations and to
prevent another 6,021 younger siblings from taking their position in the labour market in the eight different
areas of Dhaka, Chittagong, Tangail, Rangpur, Kushtia, Narayanganj, Manikganj, and Munshiganj.
The strategy of the project is to mobilize a broad alliance of governmental and non-governmental
agencies, communities, employers, trade unions, parents and children in taking joint action against
hazardous child labour in the selected sectors through multipronged interventions, which will result in
the systematic withdrawal and rehabilitation of children engaged in hazardous labour and the prevention
of younger children from entering the labour market. Thus, the project aims at preventing and eliminating
hazardous child labour in the four selected sectors by identifying child labour and those at risk;
withdrawing child labour from the workplace and providing them and their families with relevant
alternatives, and monitoring child labour both in the workplace and in the communities.
In future, the sectoral approach will be progressively shifted towards a region based approach under
which the project will address child labour issues in all the sectors in a particular region. When the
interventions are focused on a particular sector, there is a risk of shifting child labour from that sector
to another. This justifies the importance of having a region based approach at a later stage, which covers
all sectors simultaneously in a particular region, and subsequently guarantees a child labour free working
environment throughout the targeted region.
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