22/07/21

‘Child labour rampant in Bangladesh’s leather industry’

leather workers
Young trainees in the leather industry in Bangladesh. A new study reports that the leather industry in the country routinely employs children. Copyright:ILO Asia-Pacific,(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). This image has been cropped.

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  • 1.6亿儿童在2020年在全球遭受童工的约束
  • Bangladesh’s lucrative leather industry routinely employs children
  • 研究说

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[SYDNEY] Children as young as seven years are working with hazardous chemicals, heavy machinery or carrying heavy loads, endangering their health and lives in Bangladesh’s lucrative leather industry, according to astudy.

在全球,关于1.6亿儿童were subjected tochildlabour at the beginning of 2020, withnine million additional children由于影响COVID-19, according to UNICEF. Almost half of them were in hazardous work that directly imperils their健康and moral development, the UN children’s agency said.

The study, published this month and led by the发展研究所(IDS),一项位于英国的国际发展policy智囊团,世界标记2021年消除童工的国际年份.

Researchers found children aged seven to 17 working 12 to 14 hours, six days a week in almost all processes along the leather supply chain – from animal slaughter and skinning to dyeing, waste disposal and manufacturing of leather products and by-products such as glue and meat.

该报告中的案例研究包括一个在皮革手套制造业中工作的八岁女孩。她不得不使用锋利的设备切割皮革碎片,并在铣削过程中用脚软化。在另一种情况下,当他们从商店携带的盐酸桶到制革厂破裂时,两名16至17岁的制革工人遭受了严重的烧伤。

“The leather supply chain is highly complex as are the reasons why children engage in the most dangerous forms of labour,” says A.K.M. Maksud, the study’s lead author and executive director atGrambangla Unnayan Committee.

“我们发现,不仅是员工将儿童纳入最糟糕的童工形式,而且经营小型企业的家庭依靠廉价的劳动来维持生计。”

“We found that it is not only employees that are drawing children into the worst forms of child labour, but families running small businesses that depend on cheap labour to sustain their livelihoods”

A.K.M.马克苏德Grambangla Unnayan Committee

Grambangla Unnayan委员会和ChildHope UK- 这是童工的一部分:南亚和东南亚的行动研究创新(克拉丽莎) programme led by IDS – conducted the study mostly in Dhaka during May–August 2020.

Video credit:童劳动行动研究创新(Clarissa).

On average, children interviewed in the study earned US$90.80 per month and the lowest monthly income was just US$11.80.

“Most of the children said that scolding, threats, and other forms of verbal abuse were very common. Some reported being physically abused by their employers for being slow or making mistakes. But local industry associations insist that their businesses are strictly regulated and that the worst forms of child labour do not exist in their sector,” Maksud adds.

The leather sector is the second largest export industry after readymade garments in Bangladesh. In 2017, the leather industry accounted for 3.5 per cent of the country’s annual exports or US$1.2 billion, according to an亚洲发展银行report. The industry directly or indirectly employs 850,000 workers, the report says.

Danny Burns克拉丽莎计划总监说:“我们与孩子们紧密合作,因为对他们的生活产生积极影响的好解决方案需要他们的参与。

“We will also be running actionresearchgroups later this year to explore how to effectively engage small business owners in the informal economy as they are a crucial part of the picture.”

Bangladesh has ratified theInternational Labour Organisation’s Worst Forms of Child LabourConvention, but it has not ratified theMinimum Age Convention.

生物保护门户AD 2

Zama Neff主任of the children’s权利分区人权观察说:“这份新报告特别及时 - 去年甚至在大流行之前surgedfor the first time in two decades. This doesn’t have to happen.

政府应使用现金津贴来帮助家庭满足其基本需求,而无需派孩子上班。现金转移在许多地方都取得了成功,只有13亿儿童,主要是亚洲和非洲的儿童。”

Recommendations by Human Rights Watch to Bangladesh’s ministry of labour and employment include rigorously enforcing existing laws, prohibiting hazardous child labour in tanneries, with monitoring and unannounced site inspections, and issuing penalties against employers who violate the law.

“我们敦促政府立即为制革厂中的童工实施有效的拆除计划,以提供访问权限education, including non-formal education and skills developmenttraining;Neff补充说,替代收入生成的机会在适当的和社会经济赋权计划的情况下为他们的家庭提供。” Neff补充道。

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk.