Victims of Child Labor and Delinquency: An Empirical Study in Tangail City

Abstract

Child labor is one of the alarming and concerning issues throughout the world. The child labor issue is a major challenge for developing countries like Bangladesh the country has been facing poverty, high population growth, rising unemployment, and so on. The objective of this paper is to find out the vulnerabilities of child laborers in Bangladesh in terms of their victimization at the workplace as well as their involvement in anti-social activities. The data have been collected from child workers aged between 10-18 years working in various workplaces in Tangail town, Bangladesh. This study shows that most of the respondents have been involved in child labor due to poverty (95%). About 68.3% of respondents are aged between 15-18 years and 91.7% of them have joined in child labor at the age of 10-14 years. In terms of education, about 83.3% of respondents left school at the primary level. Most of the respondents (75%) have experienced different types of torture and exploitation in the workplace while 60% experienced mental torture. The study finds that 93% of respondents have been involved in delinquent activities and 61.7% of them have informed that they have learned about drug abuse from their peer groups. The child laborers are mostly very poor and get fewer opportunities and support from the government and even from their own families. Their family status is too low to stop them from working as they are one of the important earning members in their family. Therefore, a well-organized plan should be taken where the government and society will play the prime roles to ensure a child-friendly working atmosphere, and fair salary, reduce exploitation and provide other types of opportunities to enrich their educational, social, familial, and professional condition.