Preventing and Eliminating Selected Worst Forms of Child Labour in the Urban
Informal Economy of Dhaka City
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Donor(s) |
Phase I
Duration: 5 years
Starting date: March 2001
Ending date: December 2006
Bridging Phase
Duration: 8 months
Starting date: 1 April 2006
Ending date: 31 December 2006
Phase II
Duration: 5 years
Starting date: January 2007
Ending date: December 2011
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Government of the Kingdom of Netherlands
Government of the Kingdom of Netherlands
Government of the Kingdom of Netherlands |
Phase I
The Government of the Netherlands provided financial support to implement an urban informal sector child labour project in the metropolitan area of Dhaka. This five-year programme removed approximately 24,000 children from hazardous work in the urban informal sector (battery recharging, blacksmith shops, metal workshop helpers, automobile repairing, welding and painting, metal casting, plasto-rubber, vulcanising, carpentry, shoe factories, plastic recycling, chemicals, and dyeing), where children are exposed to gas, fumes, harmful chemicals, and sharp equipment, and preventing children from entering the labour market in Dhaka city.
The strategy of the project was to mobilize a broad alliance of actors both at the national and local levels in taking joint action against hazardous child labour in the informal sector. A four-pronged approach was used consisting of:
- Systematic withdrawal of children in hazardous work and prevention of child labour;
- Creation of viable alternatives for the children and their families;
- Workplace monitoring and inspection mechanisms;
- Advocacy and awareness raising.
Eighty five multipurpose centres and two vocational training centres served as focal points for service delivery (non-formal education, skills development training, and social and economic empowerment) and community mobilization and participation. Other services such as primary healthcare were provided by other private and public service providers through strategic partnerships.
Phase II
The major objectives of this phase are:
- Strengthening the knowledge base on ways to regulate, monitor and address hazardous child labour in an urban informal economy for country-wide replication;
- Developing and implementing a multi-disciplinary and multi-tier Child Labour Monitoring system;
- Providing viable alternatives for children and their guardians, families and other household as well as their employers in the form of non-formal education, skills development training, social and economic empowerment, workplace improvement programmes and other needs based supplementary service programmes;
- Creating a sophisticated beneficiary tracking and workplace surveillance system; and
- Strengthening the capacity of primary (e.g. Government, Dhaka City Corporation), employers' and workers' organization and secondary partners (e.g. NGOs and CBOs).
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