Child labour on rise at CU

Around 200 children are engaged in different odd jobs on the campus due to financial hardship of their parents.

Instead of going to school, they work on the campus for their survival and to support their families.

They are all under 12. They serve in different shops, restaurants, hall canteens and cafeterias.

Most of the children are from the villages surrounding the campus and from greater Chittagong and Noakhali district.

The wards of a section of fourth class employees of the university are also engaged in work in the shops and restaurants to support their families.

The shop and restaurant owners appoint such boys as they can easily hire them on the cheap.

Over 50 boys are working at five restaurants and other stationery shops at the Shah Jalal and Shah Amanat hall area and 50 others at the first food shops at the university station ground.

Besides, 25 teenagers also work at seven shops on Shamsunnahar hall premises, five at Kichhukhan snacks house, 20 at the Jhupries (thatched tea stall) of arts faculty, 10 at the Jhupries of Social Science and the rest at the canteens of different halls and the shops at gate number two.

A large number of children also serve foods at hall canteens and get wages not over Tk 500 per month.

Some others sell their labour only for food and shelter.

Nine-year-old Shohag from Noakhali said, he joined the Pritilata hall canteen three months back.

My father supplies water to some restaurants in Dhaka and I am the third among four brothers and a sister, Shohag said. The canteen owner very often physically tortures canteen boys, including me, he said.

When asked, he said that he did not get any payment till today.

Saddam, aged about 10 who works at a tea stall in front of the Shamsunnahar hall, said that he got Tk 500 per month.

Some students of the Department of Communication and Journalism took an initiative to make the children literate that was stopped suddenly few months back due to political reason, a student said seeking anonymity.

Head of the Law Department Prof. Md Mohiuddin Khaled expressed concern over the rise of child labour at CU and said that the university authorities should stop appointment of children in shops and canteens. Our socio-economical aspect is the cause for these, he said adding that the voluntary organisations or NGOs should come forward to reduce the child labour as well as to do something for them.

However, the university authorities pay no attention to this.