Physical, verbal and mental abuses of child domestic workers continue unabated in the country for what child rights experts say are lack of proper monitoring and supervision, and a special law to protect them.
In between 2013 and September 2018, 25 domestic child workers were killed, 45 mysteriously killed or committed suicide, and 29 raped, according to a report of Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF).
Besides, 82 incidents of physical abuse and torture occurred during the same period, it said.
It is noted that incidents of committing suicide by child domestic workers were observed much higher in the last four years from 2015 to 2018. It seems that the children were perhaps killed and then those incidents were passed off by the perpetrators as suicide, the report showed.
A total of 78 per cent of child domestic helps are female in Dhaka, according to a BSAF study conducted in 2010.
Experts said child domestic workers who face violence have to rely on the Children Act 2013 and other laws to prosecute the perpetrators in absence of a law specially designated for them.
Even there is no recognition for the child domestic workers in the existing child law, they cited.
They also mentioned recent incidents of physical abuses of child domestic workers Lamia Akhtar, Prianka and Sima by their employers in different parts of the country.
Ehsanul Hoque, programme specialist at Child Protection of Terre des Hommes Netherlands, said the way the child domestic workers are being recruited is wrong.
Child domestic workers are now supplied by middlemen. It should be stopped and a formal recruiting system introduced to ensure their full protection, he told the FE.
The government’s monitoring system should also be tightened and those who are monitoring should build up their capacity about the rights of the children too, he added.
Women’s rights activist and one of the members of domestic workers protection and welfare monitoring cell of the Ministry of Labour and Employment Advocate Salma Ali put emphasis on making a special law on the child domestic workers.
Besides, the collective efforts are needed to eliminate the torture on child domestic workers, she told the FE.
Abdus Shahid Mahmood, director at BSAF, told the FE that more than 80 per cent of the child domestic workers have to stay at their workplace without their parents to take care of them and so employers dare to torture them.
A total of 17 per cent of child domestic workers face sexual harassment, which means a special law is required to be formulated immediately to ensure their workplace safety, he said.
In recent years, the positive outcome for child domestic workers is the adoption of "The Domestic Worker Protection and Welfare Policy 2015", he said.
But the policy is not enough to prevent the violence against child domestic workers as there is no obligation on the employers’ part to follow it, said BSAF Director Mahmood.
He felt the immediate need for formulating a special law for ensuring child domestic workers’ protection, saying that cases of violence against them should be put through a speedy trial system.
Most of the cases are settled between the victims and the perpetrators outside the court, which is injustice for the former, according to him.
“The recent torture on Lamia, Prianka and Sima is very reprehensible and these things will continue unless domestic work is recognised as a hazardous job for children.”
In January last, State Minister for Labour and Employment M Mujibul Huq said the government was likely to enact a law for the protection of domestic workers if it is required.
The ministry had already formed a monitoring cell to protect them, he added.
