5-point suggestion to stamp out child labour from bidi factories

Participants at the workshop on child labour in bidi factories, held at RDRS Begum Rokeya Auditorium in Rangpur yesterday. PHOTO: STAR

The workshop held at RDRS Begum Rockeya Auditorium reviewed achievements of the 40-month project at Haragachh in Rangpur and Daulotpur, Mirpur, Kamarkhali, and Sader upzila in Kushtia, aimed at taking out children from bidi factories and rehabilitating them with training on different vocations.

The speakers including stakeholders in their review said the project was a tremendous success and put forward a set of recommendation to completely eliminate child labour from tobacco industries.

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The recommendations include five-year non-formal education (NFE) for families involved with tobacco industries, strict implementation of labour laws, effective and constructive trade unionism, employment generation and poverty reduction through setting up of cottage industries and micro credit, eradication of dowry as well as polygamy, mainly prevalent among labourer class.

In the first session, Abdur Razzak, Action Programme Co-coordinator (APC) of Society for Social Service (SSS) and Zashim Uddin Akond of SETU presented achievements and drawbacks of the ILO-WFCL project

in Rangpur and Kushtia respectively.

The two partner NGOs, together with others, implemented the project from November 2001to March 2005.

Abdur Razzak said, seven local NGOsSSS, BRAC, LH, SEPOC, CB, ESDO, BDSCwith funds from the United States Department of Labour (USDOL) took out about 10,000 out of about 20,000 child workers from hazardous jobs in Bidi factories and gave them scope for education and training on different vocations.

The NGOs provided the children with education, training, microcredit and tools for income generating activities.

In Haragachh, 7904 children are still going to schools and 2212 adolescents have been engaged in activities like sewing, embroidery, carpentry, electric work, bi-cycle and rickshaw-van repair and in cottage industries making pen, soap and such other goods, he said.

He said, "All bidi factories in Haragachh have declared their factories free from child labour. It is a great achievement."

Zashim Uddin Akond said, 2586 children were taken out of Bidi factories in Kushtia and engaged in income generating activities.

He also declared at the workshop that all Bidi factories in Kushtia are now free from child labourers.

AT Siddique, Sector Coordinator of ILO, Dhaka, conducted the workshop while ILO Consultant Keith J Fisher spoke on the impact, assessment and final evaluation of the project.

President of Rangpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) Mostafa Azad Chowdhury Babu, its former president and owner of Chad Tara Bidi Factory Mofazzal Hossen and representatives of different stakeholders attended the workshop.