Bangladesh
Children at a brick factory in Fatullah. For each 1,000 bricks they carry, they earn the equivalent of 0.9 USD.
A young girl working in a brick crushing factory in Dhaka.
Children are compelled to work for long working hours with inadequate or no rest period. Moreover, they are paid with minimum wages and enjoy no job security. Many people prefer to employ young boys to maximize services for those minimum wages. 17.5 percent of children in the aged 5–15 are engaged in economic activities. Many of these children are engaged in various hazardous occupations in manufacturing factories. In hazardous conditions, where it is common practice for the factory owners to take on children as unpaid apprentices, only providing them with two meals a day.
Children at a brick factory in Fatullah. For each 1,000 bricks they carry, they earn the equivalent of 0.9 USD.
7-year-old Jasmine collects rubbish from a steaming rubbish heap on a cold winter morning. She earns money to support her family by scavenging for items on the Kajla rubbish dump. It is one of three landfill sites in a city of 12 million people. Around 5,000 tons of garbage are dumped here each day and more than 1,000 people work among the rubbish, sorting through the waste and collecting items to sell to retailers for recycling.
A child on the side of the road attempts to sell roses to passing commuters in cars and buses.
Jainal works in silver cooking pot factory. He is 11 years old. He has been working in this factory for three years. His work starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m. For his work he gets 700 taka (10 USD) for a month. His parents are so poor that they can not afford to send him to school. According to the factory owner, the parents do not care for their children; they send their kids to work for money and allegedly don’t feel sorry for these small kids.
For a luscious break from August temperatures that average 84°F (28.9°C), a young herder does refreshing backflips off water buffalo taking their daily bath in the Turag River just west of Dhaka.
Though waters near the capital are polluted by oil, dyes, chemicals, and sewage, most of the nation’s roughly 250 rivers are wide enough or fast enough during the monsoon to flush out impurities. Water buffalo, worth about $300 each, are used mainly for plowing and milking. Children also must toil. Most start working before age ten to augment meager family incomes.
