Prevention of Child Labour in Bangladesh: A Study on the basis of Domestic Law and International Law

Abstract

This dissertation undertakes a rigorous and multidimensional analysis of child labour in Bangladesh, scrutinizing its persistence through the lenses of domestic legislation, international legal obligations, and underlying socio-economic factors. Although Bangladesh’s constitution explicitly prohibits child labour and the country has enacted numerous laws to curb the practice, systemic weaknesses in enforcement especially within the vast informal economy allow exploitation to persist. Deep-rooted cultural normalization, entrenched poverty, limited access to quality education, and institutional inefficiencies collectively sustain child labour, systematically violating children’s fundamental rights to health, safety, education, and holistic development. The study critically assesses Bangladesh’s adherence to key international standards, including the ILO Minimum Age Convention (No. 138) and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182), as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It identifies significant discrepancies between legal commitments and practical implementation, particularly in monitoring, reporting, and accountability mechanisms. Employing a mixed-methodological approach combining doctrinal legal analysis, comparative policy review, and empirical field research the investigation reveals systemic obstacles such as ambiguous statutory definitions of child labour, under-resourced labour inspections, deeply ingrained socio-cultural attitudes that trivialize children’s work, and the destabilizing effects of unplanned urbanization on vulnerable communities.