The survey is the second stand-alone national child labour study after the first in 1995-1996.

It has been undertaken to develop a comprehensive statistical database on working children and mitigate the deficiencies of data relating to child labour.

Of the total 42.4 million children, 2.4 million were reported engaged in economic activity but also attending school, says the survey conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

As many as 4.1 million children were found neither at work nor in schools. They worked in households, were sick, disabled or beggars.

As Bangladesh ratified the ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labour in the sectors like automobile workshop, welding establishment, battery recharging and recycling, road transport and street work, it wants to monitor the progress towards achieving the set goals.

Other objects of the survey are to asses the occupational risk and health hazards, the extent of exploitation of working children, demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the families of working children and average earning, wages and hours of work.

It is estimated that about 56 percent of the children were engaged in the agricultural sector, 25.4 percent in production and transport and 14 percent worked as sales workers.

It says 49.5 percent of the working children did net get salary, as they were employed in the family farm or business, and 28.6 percent were employed as paid day labourers.

Some other key findings of the survey are: the monthly average income was Tk 1,009 and 36.7 percent worked full-time, 63.3 percent part-time.

The survey that used an integrated multipurpose sample design was based on the 2001 population census. It included 40,000 households and 1,000 establishments into the sample in rural and urban areas.