Causes and Consequences of Child work in Brick Field: A Study on the Selected Brick Fields in Char Bhadrasan under Faridpur District.

Abstract

Social norms and economic realities mean that child labor is widely accepted and very common in Bangladesh. Many families rely on the income generated by their children for survival, so child labor is often highly valued. Additionally, employers often prefer to employ children because they are cheaper and considered to be more compliant and obedient than adults. When children are forced to work, they are often denied their rights to education, leisure and play. Studies revealed that one in every six children in Bangladesh was working children. The gravity of the situation led our initiative to study on child labour in brick field in the work area in Char Bhadrasan under Faridpur district .This study uses data to examine the different components of child labor in brick field. Study used quantitative method for data collection and particularly survey was used. A total of 103 respondents of five brick fields in Char Bhadrasan upozila were interviewed. SPSS windows program was used to process and organize the data for the study. The respondent were interviewed regarding various aspects related to the child labour in brick field includes causes and consequences of child labor to engage their risky job, working environment , their schooling profile, their future goal etc. The fieldwork observation shows that the working environment in brick field are hazardous to child health due to unsanitary environment, unsafe working environment (such as heat, burning ashes, flying ashes, and pieces of broken bricks everywhere), and the hazardous work (prolonged working hours, heavy work, and dangerous jobs).They also suffer from breathing problem, cold & fever, minor injuries and sometime more than that. Inspire of that majority of child workers have a very common expectation that is all of them want to lead a happy life with their work and their family.