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 Vol. 6, Issue: I EDUQUEST ISSN: 2277 - 3614
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CONTENTS

SL. NO. TITLE WITH AUTHORS PAGE

NO.

1. VIOLATION OF CHILD RIGHTS IN BANGLADESH: A STUDY OF THE

CAUSES AND EFFECTS 1 - 16

– Camellia Khan

2. EXAMINATION HALL EXPERIENCES AND ETHICALITY: EVIDENCE FROM

NEPAL

–Netra Prasad Sharma 17 – 38

3. ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION LEVEL

STUDENTS OF WEST BENGAL 39 – 51

–Jhilik Pakira & Lalit Lalitav Mohakud

4. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS AMONG

TEACHER-EDUCATORS IN WEST BENGAL 52 - 65
–Rinku Kumar & Kalyan Ghorai

5. A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF EDUCATED MUSLIM WOMEN AND THEIR

CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIETY 66 - 77
– Shahnaz Begum
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VIOLATION OF CHILD RIGHTS IN BANGLADESH:

A STUDY OF THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS

Camellia Khan
Lecturer
Department of Law, University of Barisal, Barisal, Bangladesh

ABSTRACT:
Almost half of the population of Bangladesh is children under the age of 18;and more than 20
million people are under the age of 5.As Bangladesh cannot provide all these children with
equal opportunity for growth due to its social structure, violation of child rights has become
a common phenomenon in the country. Most of these children are deprived of their basic
rights to education; balanced diet, safety, recreation and expression of thoughts, safe water
and sanitation etc. Moreover, about 13% of the children are involved in child labor.
Sometimes they are also forced into crimes like carrying arms, drugs and other illegal
materials. And due to various factors like parental control, illiteracy, lack of knowledge
about their own rights etc., children rarely get opportunities to express their situation and
lawful demands, let alone express their independent opinion or participate in any process of
decision making. This study focuses on the violation of child rights in Bangladesh and
investigates into its cause and consequences.
Keywords: Child rights, Violation of child rights, Bangladesh

INTRODUCTION:
Child right refers to the human rights of children with particular attention to the rights of
special protection and care afforded to minors. The Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) of 1989 defines a child as any human being who has not reached the age of eighteen
years. Child right includes, but is not limited to, their right to association with both parents,

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human identity, physical protection, food, universal state-paid education, health care, freedom
from discrimination on the basis of the child's race, gender, sexual orientation, gender
identity, national origin, religion, disability, color, ethnicity, or other characteristics.
Interpretations of child right ranges from allowing children the capacity for autonomous
action to the enforcement of children being physically, mentally and emotionally free from
abuse, though what constitutes "abuse" is a matter of debate. Other definitions include the
rights to care and nurturing (Bandman: 1999).

As minors by law, children do not have autonomy or the right to make decisions on
their own for themselves in any known jurisdiction of the world. Hence, their adult caregivers
– including parents, social workers, teachers, youth workers, and others – are vested with that
authority, depending on the circumstances(Hendrick:2005). However, this gives children
insufficient control over their own lives and causes them to be vulnerable (Lansdown: 1994).
Louis Althusser has gone so far as to describe this legal machinery, as it applies to children,
as "repressive state apparatuses"(cited in Jenks: 1996).

Structures such as government policy has been held responsible to mask the ways
adults‟ abuse and exploit children - resulting in child poverty, lack of educational
opportunities, and child labor. Hence, children need to be regarded as a minority group
towards whom society needs to reconsider the way it behaves (Thorne: 1987).
According to a report from the Asian Indigenous & Tribal Peoples Network (AITPN
Report 2003) there has not been much improvement in respect to the violation of child rights
in Bangladesh, and the responsibility lies with the unwillingness of the GoB(Government of
Bangladesh) to identify the priorities or issues that require urgent attention – from
implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the promotion and
protection of human rights in general. Having one of the lowest birth registration rates in
the world makes it difficult for Bangladesh to ensure child rights and to protect its children
from trafficking, child labour, child marriage and other forms of child oppression (Mohajan
2012a). And along with this, scarcity and deprivation of the major human needs like shelter,

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food, education, lack of knowledge about own rights etc. also play important roles in
promoting causes of child oppression. But recently the government of Bangladesh, along with
the child rights NGOs has taken some steps to involve children in the policy making process.
Furthermore, the GoB (Government of Bangladesh) has established children‟s forums in both
primary and secondary schools and is also nurturing the National Children‟s Taskforce
(NCTF) – having presence in all the 64 districts in Bangladesh.
METHODOLOGY:
The data used in this study is secondary and quantitative by nature. Data were
collected through reviewing relevant literature i.e., books, study reports, articles,
newspaper/television reports and publications of different national and international
organizations, websites of different GO-NGOs, INGOs, donor agencies, UN agencies, and
other academic research institutions. The collected data were then quantitatively analyzed to
have an in depth understanding and to suit the purpose of this study.

DEFINITION OF CHILDREN IN BANGLADESH:

Definition of children varies accordingly in different laws of Bangladesh. Whereas the
United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) defines a child as an
individual of less than 18 years, the Children Act of 1974 defines children as individuals
of less than 16 years. The Anti Women and Children Oppression (Amendment) Act, 2003
regards a person of not over 16 years as a child. Under national Muslim law, a child becomes
an adult on attaining teenage - which is usually 12 for girls and 15 or 16 for boys (Siddiqui
2001).
BASIC RIGHTS OF CHILDREN:
Children have basic rights to education, balance diet, health and nutrition,
protection, participation, recreation, safe water, sanitation and hygiene. But in many cases in
Bangladesh, these rights are violated in Bangladesh due to poverty, ignorance, lack of social
consciousness and discrimination. The majority of children are deprived of food, shelter,
adequate sanitation, information, and education.

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1. Rights of Food
Bangladesh is a developing country with about 26% of its population still living
below the poverty line (less than $1.00 a day or unable to afford to buy food providing a daily
intake of 2,100 kilocalories). A joint study of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
and the World Food Program (WFP) expressed that natural disasters and price hike of food
had increased the number of poor people by 7.5 million, the real household income had
dropped by 12%, and one in every four households had become food insecure, with female-
headed households hit the hardest (FAO and WFP 2008).
2. Rights of Nutrition
Well-nourished children perform better in school, grow into healthy adults, and
can serve the country better than malnourished children. Undernourished children have
lowered resistance to infection and are more likely to die from common childhood diseases,
such as diarrhea and acute respiratory infections. About two-fifths of children under the
age of 5 in Bangladesh are underweight, and nearly half of them suffer from chronic
malnutrition. A conservative estimate of the number of children under the age of 5 suffering
from wasting (weight-for-height) in Bangladesh is 2.2 million. More than half a million of
these children are in the severe category of acute malnutrition and face elevated risks of
mortality. On the other hand,some children of the wealthy families in the urban areas over
weighted because of taking excess fibreless junk food. These children are not actually
healthy. In real life obesity is a major disease which creates Type 2 diabetes, cardiac
attack,and iodine deficiency disorder (IDD) - the world‟s leading cause of preventable
mental disability and impaired psychomotor development in young children. However,
the vitamin A supplementation program for children is a success story in Bangladesh. It
prevents children from night blindness (Mohajan 2012a).
3. Rights of Health
People lacking access to safe water, hygienic sanitation, and hygiene awareness also
lack good health and social resources needed to pull themselves out of poverty (The
United Nations Children‟s Fund, UNICEF 2007). The National Strategy for Accelerated

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Poverty Reduction II (Fiscal year, FY 2009–2011) acknowledges the links between poverty
and children‟s rights.
It realizes that “the survival and development of many Bangladeshi children is
still threatened by malnutrition, disease, poverty, illiteracy, abuse, exploitation and natural
disaster‟‟. Bangladesh is successful in immunization, and vaccine-preventable diseases are
not major causes of child death. The following are the examples of this success in the period
2005–2007 (UNICEF 2009):
i. Full immunization coverage of one-year olds with valid doses of all recommended
antigens increased from 64% to 75% nationally.
ii. The proportion of one-year-old children immunized against measles, an MDG
indicator, rose from 71% to 81%. In 2006, the world‟s largest measles campaign
achieved 98% coverage of children aged from 9 months to 10 years. No measles
outbreaks were reported in 2007.
iii. Neonatal tetanus elimination was confirmed in 2008.
iv. After importation of polio in early 2006, polio-free status was regained by the end of
the year and has been sustained.
v. The central cold chain capacity doubled, and a control room was established to
electronically monitor the cold rooms for 24 hours a day.
4. Rights of Education
According to Article 28 of the Convention on the Right of the Child, the State parties,
in recognition to the right of the child to be literate 1,have agreed to provide at least all
available facilities of free and compulsory basic elementary education to all children
irrespective of caste, creed and religion and to remove illiteracy from their societies.
UNICEF‟s „First Call‟ for children designates their right to be literate as development rights
that include the right to education, play and leisure, cultural activities as well as access to

1
Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989
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information, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It is also provided in our
constitution in Article 27and 28. 2
Bangladesh has made remarkable progress over the past two decades in
increasing primary enrolment. The number of children enrolled nearly doubled between
1985 and 2005. The national Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (HIES) show net
primary enrolment rising from 75% to 80% between 2000 and 2005. Although the
enrolment rates in school are increasing but dropouts are also common in Bangladesh. In
2008 the dropout rate was about 14.5% for Grades 1–4 and 5.2% for Grade 5. In terms of
dropout, the official data collected from schools indicate that about half of the children who
enroll in primary school fail to complete Grade 5. A child who completes primary school can
easily enter the secondary school. Though the official estimate of the transition rate to
secondary school was 95.5% in 2006, the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS) (MICS
2006) found a transition rate of 89%. Transition rates are consistently higher for girls than for
boys. The secondary school net attendance ratio was 38.8%, with girls (41.4%) having much
higher net secondary attendance than boys (36.2%), (UNICEF 2009)
5. Rights of a Child Labor
According to the findings of a base-line survey in 2005, about 3,400 children worked
in brick/stone breaking for the construction industry. 3Most of these children had some types
of respiratory problem and were not provided with any safety gear or protection from brick
dust. 4Other child workers in hazardous jobs include 123,000 children working as rickshaw
pullers, 153,000 children working in restaurants or tea stalls, and 56,000 working in
carpentry. 5Child labor is in fact a reality of our time. They work for their own survival and
also for offering assistance to their families living in sheer poverty.
The issues relating to child labor have socio-economic causes that are by and large
identical in all developing countries. Child labor is a tragic and silent emergency of our time.

2
The Constitution of People’s Republic of Bangladesh, 1972
3
ILO and BBS, Baseline Survey for Determining Hazardous Child Labour Sectors in Bangladesh, 2005
4
ILO, Bangladesh Baseline Survey on Child Labour Situation in Construction Industry in Narayanganj and Munshiganj
Districts, 2005.
5
ILO and BBS, Baseline Survey for Determining Hazardous Child Labour Sectors in Bangladesh, 2005

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Like many other problems, child labor emerged out of the socio-economic conditions
prevailing in our country. The low per capita income keeps the heads of families under stress.
In such a situation parents in poor families normally avoid sending their children to schools.
Instead, they engage them in different works. These children usually work on family land,
family looms, potter wheels etc. It is a hard life but at least it is in the context of a settled
home environment. But with a rapidly growing population and increasing landlessness, the
situation is changing for the worse. Families being pushed off from their land will only
worsen the situation of the children unless alternatives can be found.
The UNICEF and the International Labor Organization (ILO) draw attention to child
prostitution as “one of the most intolerable forms of child labor. 6 In its most extreme
manifestation, children are forced into sexual work through the practice of debt bondage,
wherein a young girl‟s labor in a brothel is promised by an impoverished family for
unspecified amount of time in exchange for cash or credit. Prostitution is not only
exploitative and illegal but also of criminal nature. There are also other categories of work
which do not suite children. To maximize their profit, employers of these types of work
manipulate the market of underage children by paying them substantially less than that to be
paid to an adult worker, and hence gain a cheap, biddable, easily replaceable labor force.
Poverty is a contributory factor to increasing vulnerability of poor children who are more
likely to be abducted or kidnapped or sold into prostitution by desperate parents. However,
strategies and policies to deal with these types of exploitation have marginal impact on the
elimination of poverty.
6. Rights of the Handicapped Children
Disabled persons have the same fundamental rights as their fellow citizens of the
same age, which implies first and foremost the right to enjoy a decent life, as normal and as
full as possible. The problems of the handicapped children have not been properly
understood. There are social and psychological problems of the handicapped children and

6
Dr. Khaleda Salahuddin, Child Labour in Bangladesh, 2 nd ed. (Dhaka: Palok Publisher & Bangladesh Women Writers
Association, 2001), p. 253.

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their understanding would help in providing necessary help and assistance in protecting their
rights. A handicapped child is just like other normal children, except that he suffers from a
particular handicap. He is capable of performing all the necessary functions which a normal
child is expected to do. If not properly taken care of, trained and rehabilitated in order to earn
his independent living, a handicapped child would grow up as a handicapped person and
continue to remain a burden on the society. They have always been a subject of pity and have
been living on others charity. Therefore, the society has to help the handicapped child to
develop his latent potentialities so that he can grow up as an independent self-earning
individual and can live with respect and dignity like other normal human beings.
It is now recognized that a handicapped child has a right to live and enjoy life like
other human beings. The international community has enacted a series of instruments and
human rights declaration to protect their right to life and living. The main international
instruments addressing the disabled are The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948),
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on the Civil and
Political Rights (1966), the Declaration on the Rights of the Mentally Retarded Persons
(1971), the Declaration of Rights of the Disabled Persons (1975), and The Principles for
Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for The Improvement of Mental Health Care
(1991). „Disabled persons shall enjoy all the rights set forth in this Declaration. These rights
shall be granted to all disabled persons without any exception and without distinction or
discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinions,
national or social origin, state of health, birth or any other situation applying either to the
disabled person himself or to his or her family. Disabled persons “have the same fundamental
rights as their fellow citizens of the same age, which implies first and foremost the right to
enjoy a decent life, as normal and full as possible”(art:3). “They are entitled to measures
designed to enable them to become self-reliant as possible” (art: 5). “They have the right,
according to their capabilities to secure and retain employment or to engage in a useful,
productive and remunerative occupation and to join trade unions”(art: 7). “Disabled persons

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shall be protected against all-exploitation, all regulations and all treatments of a

discriminatory, abusive or degrading nature‟‟ (art: 10).
CAUSES OF VIOLATION OF CHILD RIGHTS IN BANGLADESH:

1. Lack of awareness about child rights among adults and children:

Although children are very welcome in our personal and family life, most adults do
not have adequate knowledge about the rights of children. As a result, in most cases, adults‟
behavior towards children does not always support the welfare and overall development of
children. Children are also unable to protest against the violation of their rights as they are
not fully empowered to do the same.

2. Adults’ negative attitude towards children:

Adults usually consider children as irresponsible, biased and fully dependent on
others. It is easy for adults to forget that children require special care on their part.

3. Lack of proper implementation of the laws relating to children:

Children in Bangladesh seem to be lucky in the sense that a special law - the Children
Act - was enacted for them in 1974, which was quite early in comparison to the emergence of
the UNCRC in 1990. The Children Act 1974 provides almost all necessary rules and
regulation in order to protect child rights in Bangladesh. However, it is really unfortunate that
all those rights are yet to be fully materialized. There is a strong link between violence
against children and proper implementation of the laws that are supposed to protect their
interest. It has been observed that in most cases, the perpetrators easily escape the judicial
procedure. As most of the child victims belong to the poor section of the society, they cannot
afford the cost (in terms of time and money) of the long process of justice.

4. Non-availability of children’s own organizations:

There is no strong and effective children‟s organization, especially in the rural areas,
through which children could mobilize themselves in order to protest against violent

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activities. There is also a lack of coordination among the already existing children‟s
organizations.
ATTEMPTS TO ESTABLISH CHILD RIGHTS IN BANGLADESH:
The GoB (Government of Bangladesh) and UNICEF have cooperated in promoting
children‟s rights since the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. The Government is now
preparing a Five Year Plan consistent with a long-term vision of economic growth, poverty
reduction, and a more inclusive and equitable society. The GoB (Government of Bangladesh)
has various social safety net programs which address the particular gender needs of women
along with their children. A program named Vulnerable Group Development Program (VGD)
is being implemented to ensure social safety and protection for the extremely poor and
vulnerable women. Due to such abovementioned steps, children of these poor and vulnerable
families get an opportunity to become educated and as well as get rid of doing risky jobs. The
GoB is also vigilant about the children of the aided families.
Mothers and children in Bangladesh are being provided with doses of vitamin A, zinc,
worm killing tablets and iron foliate for free to create a healthy nation. A total of 240 Child
Friendly Spaces (CFSs) were opened in the affected areas after the cyclone Sidr in 2007, and
another 140 SFSs were opened after the Aila in 2009 – with direct coordination from
UNICEF. Since June 2009, more than 8,000 children aged 6–12 and 200 adolescents have
benefited from this program.
Children, teenagers, pregnant and lactating women receive the following services in
those CFSs (CDRRAP 2010):
i. Two meals a day, access to clean drinking water, recreation, medical and
psychological care and hygienic latrines.
ii. Birth registration of all attending CFSs.
iii. Ensure that the affected children resume their study in schools.
iv. Psychological training to teachers.
v. Not engage the children in child labor.
vi. Psychosocial and child protection in emergency training to child facilitators.

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CFSs provide safe spaces for children to play, learn and socialize with a
provision of meals, access to clean drinking water, medical and psychosocial care and
hygienic latrines. It has helped in re-establishing normalcy and improving psychosocial
well-being among children affected by natural disasters in the immediate phase. It has also
offered families the opportunity to concentrate on rehabilitating their homes and
rebuilding their livelihoods while children are playing and learning in a safe space.
The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, UNICEF, NGOs and other civil
societies and humanitarian organizations have agreed to establish the Child Protection
Cluster (CPC) network in Bangladesh at national and local levels. Children in the
disaster affected areas are helped by providing books and study materials often free of
cost, waiving examination fees and rescheduling public examinations.

CURRENT STATE OF CHILD PARTICIPATION IN BANGLADESH:

Child participation is one of the principles of Child Rights Convention and ways to
ensure Child Rights Governance in Bangladesh. The government has recently opened
children's gallery at the national parliament that has created an opportunity for children under
the age of 12 to be present at the parliament during the sessions. The children organizations
have also taken initiatives to create a common platform where children can raise their voice
and thus enable themselves to claim their own rights. CRGA in Bangladesh has ensured child
participation through child focused and child led organizations like Ichchey Media Group
(IMG), Child Brigade (CB), Child Parliament (CP), Child Protection Movement (CPM),
Child Club (CC) and National Children Task Force (NCTF) as the members of platform.
Nevertheless, a major concern is that the right to be heard needs further strengthening, and
every family should provide opportunities for the child to voice his own opinion for
participation in family, school, and community decision-making.
NATIONAL BUDGET AND INVESTMENT IN CHILDREN:
Although gender budget has been introduced, no step has been taken to identify the
total allocation for children. There are seven ministries i.e. Ministry of Primary and Mass

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Education (MoPME), Ministry of Education (MoE), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
(MoHFW), Ministry of Women and Child Affairs (MoWCA), Ministry of Social Welfare
(MoSW), Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS), Ministry of Labor and Employment
(MoLE) engaged in child centric activities.
Among these ministries, the MoWCA is the weakest one in terms of project
implementation - till March 2012, MoWCA spent only BDT 9600.12 lacs against a total
disbursement of BDT 10539.99 lacs (GoB BDT 3199.39 lacs and Project aid BDT 7340.60
lacs) which is only 52.01 % of the total allocation 7 (BDT 18459.00 lacs was allocated in FY
2011-12 in the revised ADP against 23 projects). Among those 23 projects direct projects for
children were only 6 (2 projects implemented by MoWCA, 1 implemented by Directorate of
Women and 3 implemented by Bangladesh Shishu Academy). This justifies the need for
enhancing the capacity of MoWCA in developing and implementing children focused
projects. Weak monitoring and accountability mechanism for budgetary expenditure at
different levels of the administration is a serious concern. Extending the social safety-net
scheme for children by piloting a contributory savings scheme for working children may be
an option. Such scheme should be aligned with the existing technical and vocational training
programs which can help them.

SUGGESTIONS:
The GoB (Government of Bangladesh) and the various social organizations must be
conscious about the rights of the children. Existing literature suggests numerous points to
counter violation of child rights. The most important integrative measures for child rights
would be as follows (Uddin et al. 2009):
i. Take measures to improve basic education in order to reduce child labor
ii. Take particular contexts of the poor families into account by creating a non-formal
education system parallel to primary education
iii. Create awareness among parents about the consequences of risky child labor

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iv. Provide allowances for the poor families

v. Accelerate the food for education program at a large scale
vi. Improve the health services for children in areas where it is known that child
workers are living and working
vii. Improve the health services of rural health centres
viii. Create mobile medical teams that visit and treat child workers at their work places.

Ensuring compulsory schooling, food security, school enrolment subsidy, free study
materials, improvement of school infrastructure and quality of education, flexibility in school
schedules and adult literacy campaigns improve the awareness of child rights in the society
(Khanam 2006).To prevent child trafficking we need to create awareness of its
negative effects through seminar, symposium, movies and leaflets, strength the security
patrol at the border areas, provide special training and motivation to the police, and
exemplary punishment must be given to child traffickers (Mohajan 2012a). Employment
opportunities must be created so that parents send their children to school. At the same time,
gender violence should be eradicated from both family and the society. Education for all must
be ensured through initiative of compensation and subsidy for those street children
(Mozdalifa 2012).
The following recommendations are come out from the study:
i. Governmental commitment of fulfilling protection rights:
Government interest in, recognition of and commitment to child protection is an
essential element for child protection, i.e., for programs to combat child labor. It also includes
political leaders being proactive in raising protection on the agenda and acting as advocates
for protection.
ii. Attitudes, traditions, behaviors and practices:
In such societies where social attitudes and traditions facilitate abuse against minors,
children always remain vulnerable and their rights cannot be ensured. But in such societies
where all forms of violence against children are taboo, and where the rights of children are

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broadly respected by both custom and tradition, there, children are more likely to be
protected.
iii. Open discussion of and engagement with child protection issues:
At the most basic level, children need to be able to speak up about the issues affecting
them of other children. At the national level, attention of the media and engagement of the
civil society together can contribute towards child protection.
iv. Legislation and enforcement:
An adequate legislative framework, its consistent implementation, accountability and
a lack of impunity are essential elements of a protective environment.
v. Children’s life skill, knowledge and participation:
If children are not aware of their rights of not be abused, or are not warned of the
dangers of abuse, they become more vulnerable to abuse. Children also need to be provided
with safe and protective channels for participation and self-expression. Where children have
no opportunities for participation, they are more likely to become involved in crimes or other
types of dangerous and harmful activities.
vi. Monitoring and reporting:
A protective environment for children requires an effective monitoring system that
records the incidence and nature of child abuse and allows for informed and strategic
responses. Such systems can be more effective when they are participatory and locally based.
It is a responsibility of government to make sure that they know the situation of the
vulnerable children with regards to violence, abuse and exploitation.
CONCLUSION:
Every child is precious and has an inherent right to life. Everyone - including parents,
care givers, government, NGOs, civil society, the media and even the man on the street - has
the responsibility to ensure that every child survives. They are also to be protected by law.
Though the laws of Bangladesh comply with the convention, their objectives are
unfortunately often unclear or weakened by partial and ill-judged implementation. For proper
implementation of such laws, we need to systematically examine our legislation and the

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methods of their implementation. However, legislation is not the only solution although they
have direct impact on the status and general welfare of children. To create a healthier social
environment, we need to have a changed outlook to the upbringing of children in the family.
The GoB (Government of Bangladesh) must ensure protection of children from
all forms of abuse, violence, discrimination and exploitation. It creates an environment to
secure the well-being of children, including those who are vulnerable. It also takes recovery
and reintegration steps for the child victims of different types of abuses, violence,
discrimination and exploitation. It not only identifies and addresses the root causes of
children‟s vulnerabilities – which lead to sexual abuse, discrimination, violence and
exploitation –but also devise and implement preventive strategies against it (National Plan of
Action for Children Bangladesh 2005).Employers should not employ children in risky works.
They ought to know all the laws and policies related to child labor. They are also responsible
for treating child workers with dignity and respect, providing them with adequate
compensation, honoring all contractual arrangements with them, ensuring that their work is
safe and suitable to their ages and abilities, ensuring their access to education, and providing
vocational skills that will help them in their future lives (UNICEF 2009).
REFERENCES:
1. Asian Indigenous& Tribal Peoples Network (AITPN) Report (2003).The Status of
Indigenous & Minority Children in Bangladesh, New Delhi, India.
2. Bandman, B. (1999) Children's Right to Freedom, Care, and Enlightenment.
Routledge. p 67.
3. Children and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Asia Pacific (CDRRAP), (2010).
High Level Meeting on International Cooperation for Child Rights (ICCR) in
the Asia Pacific Region, Background Paper by Bangladesh, Ministry of Women and
Children Affairs Government of the People‟s Republic of Bangladesh.
4. FAO and WFP (2008). Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment
Mission to Bangladesh.
5. Jenks, C. (1996) "Conceptual limitations," Childhood. New York: Routledge. p 43.

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6. Khanam, R. (2006). Child Labour in Bangladesh: Trends, Patterns and Policy

Options, Asian Profile, 34(6): 593–608.
7. Lansdown, G. "Children's welfare and children's rights," in Hendrick, H. (2005) Child
Welfare and Social Policy: An Essential Reader. The Policy Press. p. 117
8. Lansdown, G. (1994). "Children's rights," in B. Mayall (ed.) Children's childhood:
Observed and experienced. London: The Falmer Press. p 33.
9. MICS (2006), Government of Bangladesh (BBS) and UNICEF (2007).Multiple
Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) Bangladesh 2006, Key Findings from Various
Sources.
10. Mohajan, H.K. (2012a). Lack of Consciousness of Child Rights in Bangladesh,
Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany.
11. Siddiqui, K. (2001). Better Days, Better Lives: Towards Strategy for Implementing
the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Bangladesh, Dhaka, University
Press Limited.
12. Thorne, B (1987). "Re-Visioning Women and Social Change: Where Are the
Children?". Gender & Society 1 (1): 85–109. doi:10.1177/089124387001001005
13. Uddin, M.N.; Hamiduzzaman, M. and Gunter, B.G. (2009).Physical and
Psychological Implications of Risky Child Labor: A Study in Sylhet City,
Bangladesh, Bangladesh. Development Research Working Paper Series (BDRWPS),
BDRWPS No. 8 (July 2009).
14. UNICEF (2007).Habits of a Lifetime: Improving Children‟s Lives through UNICEF‟s
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme in Bangladesh.
15. UNICEF (2009).Situation Assessment and Analysis of Children and Women in
Bangladesh

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