Nimtoli tragedy and children
Photo: AFP
It was reported in Amader Shomoy that six children died trapped as they had been kept locked in a bread factory. Areas such as Lalbagh, Hazaribabh, Keraniganj, Sutrapur, Jatrabari, Mirpur, Tongi, Wari, Dhalpur, Nawabpur and Kamrangir Char have a large number of child labourers. They are employed in unhealthy and dangerous work environments with extreme exposure to hazardous chemicals. In Bangladesh, nearly 4.9 million children between the ages of 5 to 15 years are involved in different types of labour. Forty-eight of these categorized as hazardous work. Most children are engaged in factories such as balloon, plastic, aluminium, tanneries, automobiles, chemicals shoe /shoe materials, jewellery, bread, biscuit etc. The child workers are paid meagre wages, often unpaid and frequently locked during work or even after working hours, playing the role of security guards. In Dhaka, five lakh female children work as domestic help, many of them are locked in every day by working couples, who leave them to tend to their own privileged children. Keeping children locked is an illegal and highly risky act when it comes to emergency situations such as earthquakes, fires, gas leaks and perhaps even cases of sudden illness. It concerns me as to what would happen to thousands of children in our industrial areas such as Lalbagh, Hazaribagh etc, if another incident such as the Nimtoli fire occurs. The locations mentioned have infrastructures which are not work-friendly. The areas have narrow roads, weather beaten and fragile buildings, no water facilities and open illegal electricity and gas lines. Fire alarms, extinguishers or emergency drills are simply not heard of. As an employee of an organisation working to protect and safeguard Child Rights it upsets and severely concerns me that the highly illegal practice of locking up individuals (children or otherwise) is carried out. The working conditions as mentioned are also highly unsafe. Also the lack of adequate fire control measures and the practice of storing inflammable materials / chemicals in areas of high population density expose thousands of people, including children to grave risks. Immediate steps need to be taken to ensure better fire safety and implement stringent rules to curb the storage of inflammable chemicals and materials in areas in these areas. Also the practice of locking up children indoors must be stopped. I would like to request the Honourable Prime Minister and other authorities concerned to see to it that immediate action is taken against such illegal practices.
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