Out of the 40 million victims of modern slavery worldwide, almost two thirds—25 million people—are exploited in Asia and the Pacific. Making the region host to the largest number of victims of modern slavery today.

While child labour has been criminalised in Bangladesh, the social structures are such that engaging children in the labour force is commonplace.

Eradicating modern slavery in a country marred by entrenched poverty is no easy task, especially when the majority of it occurs in the private economy—in our private homes and private businesses.

What do you do with the damaged battery or chargers of your cell phone? Where do you keep your fused bulbs and abandoned switches? What about obsolete computer accessories?

Sometimes I wonder how the future generations will view our time. For example, what will be their reaction when they come to know of the child labour situation in our society?

Bangladesh has made encouraging progress in increasing the number of enrollment in schools and yet 1.7 million children find themselves toiling in the informal sector of the economy...

A toothbrush, two shirts, a pair of trousers and a savings of Tk 465 are all that Russell has after four years of back-breaking labour at

One can easily count the ribcage bones of the 11-year-old bidi (local cigarette) factory worker. Stunted Monir Islam suffers from health problems such as frequent fevers, headaches, nausea and cough but has to work due to poverty.

Labour practices and the right to organise by workers have recently received a lot of attention in Western media, triggered by terrible industry accidents in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

In any country, one has to be an adult to qualify as a driver. But in Bangladesh, one does not have to obey that law to become a driver – and that literally means it is “allowed”.

Seventy-year-old day labourer Md Altaf Hossain from Nokathi village in Jhalakathi's Rajapur upazila has seven children, none of whom studied even as far as the Secondary School Certificate except one of his sons, Md Nasiruddin. Economic hardship made education elusive for the family but Nasiruddin, now 24, was determined. Unable to rely on financial support from home for his tertiary studies, Nasiruddin turned to pedal power.

The news of 12-year-old Purnima, being set alight by her employer and then left in a warehouse without any medical treatment...

While we can take comfort from the fact that we have been able to reduce the number of child workers by two million in the last 10 years, a large number of children are still employed in hazardous work.

The Child Bill 2013 is supposed to be in harmony with the CRC and recognises that an individual below 18 is a child. Why then do we still have child marriages? Why then do we have little children working in homes, in biri factories, in garbage dumps and tanneries?

Protecting the rights of children and providing the essentials for their development must be part of the definition of poverty reduction.

The United Nations has announced it is marking the 2015 edition of the World Day Against Child Labour with a call for the international community to invest in quality education as a key step in the fight against child employment – a scourge that consumes over one hundred million children worldwide.

Underage children working in developing countries has been a harsh reality for many years and Bangladesh is no exception.

With child labour decreasing at a dismal rate of only 2.2 per cent per year; it would take more than a century to end the menace, says a report.

UN says armed groups in Central African Republic agrees to release all the children working with them and end child recruitment

Employees at different hotels and restaurants in Pabna are forced to work 12 to 15 hours a day. And despite this long hours of work, they are poorly paid.