National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) chairman Nasima Begum has called for raising the parents’ awareness and building an affirmative and sound mindset of people in the society to put an end to child labour and domestic work.
Terming that every child was born with great potential and intellect, she also identified poverty as one of the key reasons for the prevalence of child labour and domestic work in the country.
Her observation and call came at a dialogue styled Rights and Protection of Children Engaged in Domestic Work, organised by Action for Social Development (ASD) at an auditorium held at the NHRC office in the capital on Tuesday.
Hamidur Rahman, programme director at ASD, chaired the function while Subarna Jesmine gave the address of welcome.
In open discussion, participants and stakeholders said child domestic workers continue to fall prey to abusers in the country.
They also put emphasis on creating public awareness with proper action to exterminate this brutal practice of children being abused by their employers.
They also suggested bringing some amendments to the child-related laws to safeguard their due and fundamental rights, they added.
Earlier in a report, the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) reveals that as many as 591 domestic workers, who were mostly under 18, were killed and tortured in Bangladesh between 2011 and 2020.
During the period between 2013 and September 2018, some 25 domestic child workers were killed, 45 mysteriously killed or committed suicide and 29 others were raped, according to the data available with Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF).
It also showed that some 82 incidents of physical abuse and torture took place during the period.
Incidents of suicide by child domestic workers were much higher in the last four years from 2015 to 2018. Perhaps children were killed and then those incidents were labelled as a suicide, the data revealed.
According to a study conducted by the BSAF in 2010, 78 per cent of child domestic helps were female in Dhaka.