Rights Investigation
The Case Of Bangladesh
Towards a rights-based approach for child labour migrants
Dr. Sumaiya Khair
Aresearch on migrant children has just been concluded by the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) of the University of Dhaka. Titled Children's Migration for Livelihood: The Bangladesh Experience, the study attempts to examine the specificities of the position of child migrants and analyse the dynamics of migration and its effect on them. Based on findings from interviews with children who have migrated without their immediate families and families of migrant children, the study looks at different aspects of children's migration experience.
While the practice of rural-urban movement by children with their families is not a new phenomenon, there is growing evidence of children's migration without the company of their immediate families. This trend is perceived as being precipitated by structural changes and a breakdown in traditional kin systems. As children migrate to cities they are hurled from rural obscurity to congested urban centres where they begin a life fraught with uncertainty and fear. For the newly arrived migrant children work constitutes an essential part of their survival strategy. They work in highly diversified conditions in the informal labour market where they are compelled to deal with various exigencies.
Notwithstanding widespread migration by children, there is no pragmatic policy measure to cope with the phenomenon in Bangladesh. Rather, migration, whether by adults or children, has always been viewed as a nuisance to the urban way of life. Although the focus of policy planners has remained riveted on children in the labour market in the last decade or so, and that, too, on account of international pressure to eliminate child labour, there has virtually been no attempt to examine the means and ways in which they get there. This is manifest in the void within the policy and legal regimes in respect of protecting child labour migrants from harm and exploitation, inherent characteristics of the informal sector where the majority of them work. In the absence of adequate policy and legal framework and institutional support, child labour migrants are obliged to devise their own strategies for surviving the odds.
It is important for policy makers to acknowledge that like adults, children, too, migrate and when they do move, they are not necessarily forced into the process. The decision is more often central to the livelihood of their families. It is equally important to recognise that children constitute a separate constituency with rights and entitlements that are derived from national and international legal regimes. Certainly, children should not be made to work in conditions that are detrimental to their health, safety and intellectual development. However, until the time when there will be no more child labour, efforts should be made to formulate concrete guidelines or safety nets to protect child labour migrants in the short run. In the absence of an enabling environment, child labour migrants will continue to run the risk of exploitation not only in terms of wage rates, health, safety, and minimum standards in their workplaces but discrimination, abuse and deprivation of educational and other amenities in the places of destination.
Professor H K S Arefin, Professor Munirul Islam Khan were the designated discussants of the workshop that was chaired by Professor Firdous Azim and Dr. Shahdeen Malik. Advisor to the Caretaker Government Ms. Rokia Afzal Rahman was present as the Chief Guest. The sessions were attended by members of children and women's' organisations as well as representatives of international organisations such as ILO, IOM.
The author is Professor of Law, University of Dhaka.
