Almost half of the bidi factory workers are children who are deprived of education and exposed to serious health risks at the time of their physical growth.
Every year Bangladesh government observes the World Day with a clarion call to all to put an end to child labour in the hazards jobs. They also make a lot many promises to stop child labour but barely anything is done in the end.
According to a latest research report conducted by PROGGA, a non government organization, also suggests that half of the labourers in the bid factories are children.
The report shows that there are around 117 Bidi factories in the country and around 65,000 enlisted labourers are working in those factories.
Despite the government ban, the number of child laborers in different risky working sectors across the country is increasing day by day.
Experts and child rights activists think that the number is increasing due to lack of proper monitoring and application of the law by the authorities concerned.
ABM Zubair, Executive Director, of PROGGA, said government should gradually stop Bidi cultivation from the country as it is causing serious health hazards to a huge number of children.
"These children work in an unhygienic manner only for earning Tk15-20 every day. They are deprived of education and health service," he said.
How Bangladesh could achieve SDGs goal by keeping such number of children in the Bidi factories, he also raised the question.
When asked what steps the government could take to stop such profession, he said gradually the government should increase more taxes on the Bidi items and inspire bidi industrialists to shift to different businesses.
Another research of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) revealed that there are around 195 Bidi factories in the country along with 75,000 enlisted workers.
PROGGA's survey shows that around 35 Bidi factories with 40,000 workers are located in Haragach in Rangpur district.
Among the numbers about 20,000 are children, while 12,000 are women and 8,000 are men.
The Bangladesh government has identified 38 types of works as health hazardous for children in the country and working in bidi factory comes at the fourth position of the list.
Bidi factory owners are employing more children as they can be hired in exchange for a very negligible amount of money.
According to International Labour Organization (ILO) 2006 research report in Bangladesh, about 3.2 million children aged between 5 and 17 are engaged in jobs. Of them, 1.3 million children between the age group of 5 and 17 are engaged in hazardous labour.
Considering the enormous negative impacts of it, in the proposed budget 2017-18, the prices and taxes on bidi was increased slightly by abolishing existing tariff value system with an aim to shift from this hazardous sector within next three years.
