Child trash pickers in severe health risk

While over 3,000 families of garbage pickers at the capital's Matuail landfill site are doing the important task of recycling, they suffer from severe physical illness and even fatal accidents due to their constant exposure to unhygienic environment and toxic materials, speakers told a seminar yesterday.

Deprived of all opportunities of education and skills, children of these poverty-stricken families engage themselves in such hazardous work as collection of recyclable materials from garbage stacks, which often causes serious harms to them, they added.

The Grambangla Unnayan Committee (GUC) and Nari Maitri   jointly organised the seminar at CIRDAP auditorium in the capital.

Citing Dhaka South City Corporation estimates, Executive Director of GUC AKM Maksud said  every day over 3,000 tons of garbage are disposed of at Matuail landfill.

"Children who live off the heaps of garbage often get injured by sharp objects and sometimes even lose their limbs in accidents caused by garbage trucks and bulldozers," he added.

Aiming to create opportunities for the children living near the landfill site, GUC and Nari Maitri have been implementing a three-and-a-half-year project titled "Education and Health for Child Waste Picker," Maksud informed the seminar.

The project which started in July last year includes  construction of a primary school for 200 children, a technical skills training centre for 150 adolescents , and a day care centre for children aged between three and six.

An awareness campaign, targeting some 2500 people, on hygiene and hazardous work is also going on under the project, he said.

Executive Director of UK-based ChildHope Jill Healey, GUC Adviser Mozammel Haq and Ward Commissioner of the landfill area Syeda Rokhsana Islam also spoke.