The children sat on mats under a tree or in a vacant shed, in groups of three or four, each group sharing a small textbook. The teacher, using a chalkboard set on an easel, conducted the lessons, then put questions to the children. The children shot back with their answers. It was simple and efficient, and, to judge by the eagerness of the children, it seemed to be working.
I particularly remember the face of one boy, and the deep gashes on his arms and legs. He had come to sit on the mat not for schooling, but for medical attention.
I sat down next to him. “How were you hurt?” I asked through an interpreter.
“I was pushing a cart up a hill,” he said. “It rolled backwards. The wheel ran over me.”
The wound just above his ankle was jagged, and dirt had started to collect in it.
The teacher had brought some disinfectant and bandages. “I do the best I can for him,” he said. “Much of my time is spent tending to the children’s cuts and wounds.”
“Shouldn’t he go to a hospital?” I asked.
“They would only turn him away. He has no money.”
The boy was in a great deal of pain. He tried to smile, but in his dark eyes was the deeper pain of someone who had known misery through much of his life.
“I hope it will heal soon, and you’re feeling better,” I said to him.
I knew my attempt at comforting him could be no more than a fleeting moment in a life marked by neglect and abuse.
During my four days in Bangladesh, I encountered many different attitudes toward child labour. Some of these were very disturbing, especially when it came to girls working as child domestics.
One woman who was working with an organization for children told me outright, “We see no problem with young girls working as domestics. Girls do not go to school, and this is a way for them to earn their keep.”
She had to be aware, of course, that almost three-quarters of all females in Bangladesh are illiterate, that only thirteen per cent of girls ever enrol in secondary school. Why was she not promoting education for girls, rather than trying to rationalize the present situation? If she had daughters of her own, would she be content to have them work as domestic servants?
These people were of the opinion that child domestic servitude was a tradition in Bangladeshi society that wasn’t inherently wrong, that it just needed to be regulated to prevent abuse. They didn’t feel it exploited children, because, in their opinion, unlike work in shops or industries, “the employer does not get any direct financial benefit from the child labour.”
I think a poster on her office wall said it all. It showed a child domestic worker, and the caption read: “I am not a slave. This is my job.”
In a study of child domestic work in Dhaka, it was found that “the majority of child domestics receive salaries less than 100 taka per month.” That’s less than $1.50 US. Is that not cheap labour?
On one occasion, we had arranged to pick up one of the coordinators of an education video project developed to expose the discrimination against girls in South Asia. The video was titled Meena, referring to the central cartoon character, a highly spirited young girl. Our car came to a stop in front of the gates outside the coordinator’s home. As we sat waiting for her to arrive, we looked past the partly open metal gates. We saw a child, a young girl, squatting on her legs and brushing the leaves and dust off the driveway. Alam, the driver and I stepped out of the car and walked toward the girl.
When she looked up, we saw that she could be no more than ten years old. Her black hair was tied back and her face was marked with dirt. She was indeed one of the thousands of child domestic servants we had heard about.
The woman we were waiting for appeared. On seeing us with the girl, she immediately became very agitated.
“Is she not going to school?” we asked.
“I know nothing about this girl. She has been hired by the landlord.”
The purpose of the film we later watched was to help girls realize they are capable of more than serving others, that they have a right to an education and a right to fulfil their own dreams. Throughout the screening, my mind couldn’t help returning back to the young girl behind the metal gates. I was left to wonder what was stopping the coordinator from making the connection between the girl in the film and the one at her home.
This episode was just one of several in Bangladesh that took me by surprise. Most of my correspondence with human rights organizations in South Asia had been with India, where there was a strong movement against child labour. I was not prepared for what I found in Bangladesh—a strong movement that condoned it.
Again and again we were told that the income children earned from employment was essential for their family’s survival. They pointed directly to what happened with the country’s garment industry as an example of where attempts to change the situation had made matters worse for children, not better.
Bangladesh’s garment industry had been the fastest-growing source of foreign money and employment, with fifty-two per cent of its exports going to the American market. More than 50,000 children worked in the industry, often for long hours in cramped conditions, and for wages of no more than a dollar a day.
In August, four months before my visit, a fire had raged through a Bangladeshi garment factory, resulting in nine people being trampled to death while trying to escape. Four of them were under the age of fourteen. Reports concluded that a gate at the exit was locked and escape routes were blocked. Firefighting equipment was absent or inaccessible.
Yet allowing children to work in textile factories was defended as essential. Many were quick to bring up what had happened as a result of the bill introduced by Tom Harkin2 in the US Senate in 1993. The bill would prohibit the importation of goods made by child labour. Although it has never been passed, it caused great concern in Bangladesh’s garment industry. Fearing the loss of their market, industry officials quickly removed all children from their factories. Without access to any other source of income or better schooling, some children ended up in jobs that were far more dangerous than work in the garment factories—breaking bricks, making fireworks, selling goods on the street.
I met with numerous organizations that used this situation as a reason to promote the need for child labour in Bangladesh. “Work in the garment industry is better than anywhere else. What would you have these children do? Let themselves be scarred making fireworks? Allow them to become prostitutes?”
These organizations, composed entirely of adults, appeared to exist for the sole purpose of writing and distributing literature to promote the need for child labour. One such pamphlet, which was distributed around the world, showed a series of pictures of a child breaking bricks, taking money, eating, and smiling, as if to justify child labour.
I was getting a quick education in the world of human rights organizations. Some seemed more interested in giving themselves jobs than in actually helping children. It was another brand of exploitation, a more elaborate and sophisticated kind, but exploitation nevertheless.
I couldn’t understand why anyone would be satisfied to see kids working long hours in any type of dangerous job. Couldn’t there be other options for these children, improved social programs, schooling? I couldn’t help but feel that the ones who attempt to justify child labour are never the ones who are suffering the most. In fact, I didn’t meet a single child in any of the organizations we met. And no one seemed to agree on a solution.
This was particularly evident in one meeting we had. It brought together Alam and me, a representative of UNICEF, and three