'We need to make children aware of their rights'

One slip, one fumble and he could be maimed for life. And all it takes is a moment of carelessness or indecision.

Twelve-year-old Hamid, who works in one of Bangladesh's umpteen lathe workshops, is dimly aware of the dangers involved. But not much, as this is his first job. Even if he were, he wouldn't have any choice about it -- work he would be made to, and work he would have to.

His immediate boss, 17-year-old Komal, knows more about the blood-thirstiness of the giant rotating wheels. He has been here too long not to know. A skilled hand now, Komal too had started out as an apprentice like Hamid. Now he has a better job -- one that is not as dangerous as Hamid's, but dangerous still.

Hamid and Komal are among the millions of child workers in Bangladesh, a country where the practice is illegal in all except family-run enterprises. Dhaka too is a signatory to the United Nations's Convention on the Rights of the Child which commits members to eradicate child labour.

"Poverty forces children to begin working early in life," says International Labour Organisation coordinator Wahidur Rahman. "More than 40 per cent of Bangladeshis are below the poverty line."

The ILO estimates there are close to 50 million child workers in the country. Most of them are farmhands and are the backbone of rural Bangladesh. Among girls, only very few work outside; 85 per cent do unpaid family work.

In cities and towns, girls are mainly domestic helps, while the boys work in small roadside stalls, shops, hotels or as garbage collectors. Small factories which make jewellery, shoes, locks and beedis (indigenous cigarettes) employ these youngsters. They are made to work for 10 to 14 hours a day, and paid much less than an adult.

The UN Children's Fund says the best way to keep children away from workplace is to send them to school. An ambitious government programme to enroll 15 million of these youngsters in primary school by the turn of the century is nearing its target; but parents keep pulling their wards out after a few years.

Most poor parents think that vocational education, which would give their children livelihood skills, is more valuable than primary. UNICEF have been pushing to eliminate child labour in 27 dangerous occupations like car repair, brick and stone breaking, spray painting and handling chemicals.

''We need to allow children to work,'' says Rahman, ''We have to humanise work conditions, provide safety equipment, sensitise employers and make children aware of their rights.''

An effort is being made by a non governmental organisation, Phulki (meaning spark in Bangla), to increase the children's awareness about their rights. In a small thatched shack in a slum alongside Dhaka's posh Gulshan locality, 10 children -- five girls and five boys -- identified as leaders, are being taught of their government's commitment to the UN Child Rights Convention. Each would, in turn, spread the message to 10 others. ''Some of the children who were trained convinced their parents to send them back to school,'' says Selina Begum, a Phulki activist.

Adds 12-year-old Kulsum, ''Phulki has told us what our rights are, and we try and persuade our parents to do what is good for us and them.''

Now UNICEF and the World Bank are providing free school books and hot meals to tempt parents to send their children to classrooms. But progress is slow -- less than a fifth of the total who enroll reach the fifth grade.

Today, a total of some 8,000 former child labourers under 14 years of age are enrolled in schools.

UNI