VZCZCXRO5910
RR RUEHHM RUEHJO RUEHPOD
DE RUEHKA #0745/01 1960350
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 140350Z JUL 08
FM AMEMBASSY DHAKA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7038
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
INFO RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC
RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 8483
RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO 8531
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 2260
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 9767
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 0735
RUEHCI/AMCONSUL KOLKATA 1377
RUEHBI/AMCONSUL MUMBAI 0325
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI 0970
RUEHXI/LABOR COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 DHAKA 000745 
 
SIPDIS 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR USTR VKADER AND AADLER 
DOL/ILAB FOR RRIGBY, JPIORKOWSKI 
DEPT FOR DRL/ILCSR MMITTELHAUSER, GTIP SSTEINER 
DEPT ALSO FOR SCA/PB, SCA/RA, USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB EAGR ETRD SOCI PGOV BG
SUBJECT: BANGLADESH: CHILD/FORCED LABOR IN GOODS PRODUCTION - TVPRA 
RESPONSE 
 
REF: A) DHAKA 00618 B) STATE 43120 C) DHAKA/DC EMAILS MAY-JUNE 2008 
 
DHAKA 00000745  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1. (U) As a result of poverty and population density in Bangladesh, 
child labor exists throughout the country.  Economic necessity 
requires millions of children to work for their survival and that of 
their families.  The Government of Bangladesh (GOB) has limited 
capacity to enforce its labor laws, which do not cover the informal 
and agricultural sectors that employ many children.  The GOB works 
closely with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to address 
"the worst forms of child labor." It is common for labor agents and 
employers to pre-pay wages to seasonal workers or internal migrants 
for a set period of service by children or adults.  While these 
arrangements mostly do not involve coercion or deception, they can 
result in exploitative conditions. 
 
¶2. (U) Ref A and this cable provide Embassy Dhaka's response to Ref 
B tasking.  Per Ref C guidance, this cable focuses on the incidence 
of child labor in Bangladesh's production of matches, leather, bidis 
(hand-rolled cigarettes), and garments.  This reporting supplements 
DOL-contracted reports on forced and child labor provided by Macro 
International subcontracted to Services and Solutions International 
(SSI) in Bangladesh.  Post worked closely with SSI in the gathering 
of information and compilation of its reports.  Post's new labor 
officer is David Arulanantham, who can be reached via email at 
ArulananthamDP@state.gov. 
 
MATCHES 
------- 
 
¶3. (U) During an unannounced visit to a match factory, EmbOffs found 
that approximately 15 percent of the workers appeared to be children 
under the age of 14 and another 20 percent were adolescents. 
Children and adolescents worked at all stages of the match 
manufacturing process, including shaving logs into thin sheets, 
stamping out sticks, drying, dipping sticks in match head chemicals, 
packing boxes, and printing matchbox packaging.  The factory manager 
claimed he hired children at the request of parents who also worked 
in the factory.  The manager reported the parents were worried about 
their children being exposed to drugs or other harmful influences on 
the street if they were not working nearby.  Given the adult 
workers' abject poverty the extra income was welcome, the manager 
added, reporting that some of the children attended school in 
addition to working in the factory.  While profit margins are very 
tight in the match business, the manager stated he did not pay 
children any less than adult workers.  Heat and insufficient fire 
safety precautions were the main health/safety issues for both 
children and adults within the factory. 
 
LEATHER 
------- 
 
¶4. (U) EmbOffs saw no child workers in the four leather tanneries 
visited.  In the fetid tanning factories, the backbreaking work 
involves scraping and moving large chemical-laden skins from various 
baths and treatment drums.  Bolstering the tannery owner's claims 
that children did not do this work, it seemed it would be physically 
impossible for a child to effectively perform most jobs within the 
tanneries.  While a child could be involved on the margins with 
fetching objects or cleaning, EmbOffs saw none during unannounced 
site visits.  We observed one child worker in a leather-crafting 
workshop working alongside skilled craftsmen; the boy appeared to be 
an apprentice. 
 
BIDIS 
----- 
 
¶5. (U) According to labor researchers, the production of bidis - 
hand-rolled cigarettes with a leaf wrapper - takes place in the 
informal sector.  In response to consumer preferences, the bidi 
factory closest to Dhaka recently shifted to producing cheap 
cigarettes, involving a more mechanized operation that reportedly 
has limited scope for child labor.  Researchers told us the rolling 
of bidis was traditionally the work of women and children, since 
 
DHAKA 00000745  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
smaller fingers were better able to roll and fold leaves. 
 
GARMENTS: SUPPLY CHAIN CONCERNS 
------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) Following a multi-stakeholder effort to eliminate child 
labor from the garment sector following the 1992 Harkin Bill, 
Bangladesh has maintained that its garments export sector to be 
child-labor free.  The Solidarity Center (AFL-CIO) in Bangladesh 
reported that all manufacturing in Bangladesh's Export Processing 
Zones (EPZs) was free of child labor.  According to an ILO official, 
it was difficult to validate the Bangladesh garment industry's claim 
the sector was child labor free outside the EPZs because the garment 
industry monitored only a fraction of the total number of garment 
factories.  International investigative media reporting (i.e. UK's 
Channel 4 in 2006) on major brands (i.e. Walmart in 2005) alleged 
that factories producing for international brands had not been 
consistently child labor free in recent years. ILO consultants also 
suggested that while children might be actively excluded from RMG 
production for export, there was no corresponding effort for 
garments produced for Bangladesh's domestic market. Based on media 
and NGO reports, it seems likely child labor exists in supply 
industries linked to the RMG sector, and in non-export oriented RMG 
production. 
 
CANDLES/FUEL LOGS 
----------------- 
 
¶7. (U) In the Cox's Bazaar region of southeastern Bangladesh, the 
production of candles and combustible fuel logs for the domestic 
market involves child labor.  For example, LabOff observed an 
approximately 12-year-old boy sealing plastic bags of candles with a 
hot iron in an informal factory - essentially a shed. A second boy 
was cutting vegetables to make lunch for the factory workers.  A 
larger group of boys played nearby; they said they worked in two 
factories, the candle shed and another informal factory that 
manufactured artificial fuel logs made of compressed grain chaff. 
The production of candles is a low-technology manufacturing process. 
 In fact, some NGOs use candle-making as an income-generating 
project for female slum dwellers. 
 
AGRICULTURAL AND AQUACULTURAL GOODS 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) Bangladesh's agricultural sector accounts for at least 20 
percent of the Gross Domestic Product, and at least 50 percent of 
employment. Bangladesh's agricultural and informal sectors are 
excluded from the national labor law regime; accordingly there is no 
legal prohibition on the use of child labor in the rural sector. 
However, the GOB recognizes that some of the "worst forms of child 
labor" may exist in the rural sector (e.g. spice milling, fish 
drying) and has been working with the ILO and other donors to craft 
an appropriate development program response.  As in many 
agricultural economies, child labor as part of a farming/fishing 
household is common and may be exploitative. 
 
FORCED LABOR: BONDAGE BY CREDIT 
------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (U) The most common form of forced labor in Bangladesh (for all 
ages of workers) is debt-bondage. Particularly for workers from the 
poorest north-western region of Bangladesh, labor agents pre-pay 
families for labor to be provided over a number of months in the 
southern areas - commonly in coastal areas associated with fishing 
work, for working harvest seasons, or in Bangladesh's ship breaking 
yards.  Although some employers using bonded labor claim to repay a 
pro-rated amount of wages if a worker wishes to return home early, 
anecdotal evidence suggests most do not.  Additionally, personal 
debts accumulated by workers and the costs of transportation to home 
villages further limit the option of leaving exploitative working 
conditions. 
 
¶10. (U) In the case of children, poor families sometimes place their 
children with nearby employers who pre-pay them for the term of the 
child's employment and also agree to feed and house the child 
worker. The proximity of the employment allows the family to see the 
 
DHAKA 00000745  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
child, ensuring s/he receives food and care. LabOff observed cases 
of bonded child workers in the fish-drying industry in Bangladesh's 
Cox's Bazaar region. 
 
COMMENT: CHILD LABOR IN DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT 
----------------------------- 
 
¶11.  (U) International interventions related to child labor in 
Bangladesh fall into two main categories: the developmental and the 
compliance-oriented.  Compliance efforts for certain product 
categories may successfully end child labor in targeted sectors but 
often fail to address the fundamental causes and consequences of 
child labor.  From a human development standpoint, children who no 
longer work may no longer be able to afford school, and they may be 
unable to obtain food or shelter for themselves or their families. 
Without well-conceived development programs, a child worker who 
loses his employment in the formal sector may be subjected to 
increased exploitation and lower economic benefits in the informal 
sector.  In this grindingly poor nation, eradicating child labor 
requires not only enforcement and compliance, but also development 
support for education, livelihoods, food, shelter and health care. 
 
MORIARTY