Letters To The Editor

Since when has child labour in Bangladesh been eliminated?

This is in response to Rubana Huq's article "Choice: Indispensably branded or ethically slaughtered?" published on TDS, August 5, 2015. I was extremely perplexed by some of her statements made in the article and in fact, I even took issue with some things that were pretty insensitive. Although I agree on her point that Bangladesh suffers from a lack of proper branding, her analogy between underage Western models and child labour in our country was broad and inappropriate. The two cannot be compared and the example was a poor choice on her part. 

The other thing that I thought was inconsiderate of her to say was, "Bangladesh eliminated child labour years ago and the concept of forced or bonded labour doesn't apply here…" Really? Since when? If she meant it in another context, her choice of word  is to blame, because from what it sounds like, that is simply not true; child and forced labour in Bangladesh is very much a reality. The way the article dealt with the issue of branding seems to render child 
labour in Bangladesh invisible and that's problematic.

Shayan, On e-mail