Is Acceptance of Child Labour a Social Norm in Bangladesh?

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA – UNICEF SOCIAL NORMS COURSE

Is acceptance of child labour a social norm in Bangladesh?

Patricia Portela de Souza 7/16/2010

Executive Summary

The total working children population between 5 and 17 years old is estimated at 7.4 million1 in Bangladesh out of 150 million people. The vast majority of these children come from impoverished families and the income generated by children is supposed to contribute to the family income. The working children have their rights brutally denied and are more vulnerable to violence and abuse.

Bangladesh was one of the first countries to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1990. However, the country is yet to fully implement its articles by undertaking appropriate legislative and administrative measures as well as addressing prevailing practices and attitudes against children. In terms of social norms and perceptions, it seems that a child involved in labour or in any income generation activity is no longer considered a ‘child’ as per the CRC but an important labour force. As Bichieri (2006) would say the script associated with the category ‘impoverished child’ in much of

1 http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/newdelhi/ipec/responses/bangladesh/index.htm Bangladeshi society includes ‘labour force’. Therefore, a re-categorization of the ‘impoverished child’ is urgent needed to change the script associated with this category in the country.

Why are families sending their children to work instead of school? If they had an option and an enabling environment with economic alternatives, they certainly would re-visit this country-wide practice. But it seems that the society perceives the social role of the impoverished children as legitimate part of the labour force.

I argue that somehow the impoverished families activate a script (Bicchieri, 2006) that was socially determined for them when challenged by poverty. If we take Bicchieri’s social norms framework, the widely spread practice of child labour among families that come from poor backgrounds can be considered a social norm in Bangladesh. According to her theoretical framework, there are conditional preferences for a social norm to exist, which depend on empirical expectations (the individual believes that a sufficiently large part of the relevant population conforms to a certain behaviour when faced by the same situation) and on normative expectations (the individual believes that a sufficiently large part of the relevant population expects him/her to conform to a certain behaviour when faced by the same situation). Many people believe that families facing poverty are supposed to send their children to work to generate income for the family members.

The perceptions of Bangladesh is deeply rooted in social norms, attitudes and practices; despite the fact that existing domestic legislation, policy and the CRC principles and articles are in favour of children. Blanchet (2008) affirms that the Bangladeshi society does not consider ‘every human being below the age of 18 as a child”. The recognition of a child as a human being who has special rights is not clearly stated for every child, positioning he/she in a very vulnerable situation and reinforcing his/her vulnerability to work.

The phenomenon of child labour is not unique to the case of Bangladesh. In fact, in pre- capitalist societies that went through the early stages of industrialization, the child was perceived as important labour force to complement family’s income. The industrialization and political, social and economic modernization of the so-called Western developed societies have changed the role and functions of the families – and their children, particularly from the end of XIX century on-wards. Along the XX century, the family suffered several transformations but is kept as the place for the primary socialization for the children together with the school.

2 Programmatic interventions and required changes

But I argue that the starting point for our interventions on child labour (both protection and communication for development ones) is the concrete situation of individuals themselves (the children and their families) and not necessarily their expectations and the expectations of the others who interact with them (relationships, networks). The expectations of community members, children and their parents are not necessarily addressed (empirical expectations and normative expectations) because we have not assessed them.

I suggest that we should review our strategies to bring on board the social expectations around the social role of the impoverished children and their families, starting from the working children families and their employees. Information and messages need to be re- shaped. What are the social norms that apply to those children? What are the alternatives for their families? What are the empirical and normative expectations in this case? I think research could help us to understand the expectations and how to address them. Local debates and policy advocacy alone will not lead us to sustainable social norms change. We have to bring the unseen but very real element of social norms in order to promote sustainable change in favour of all Bangladeshi children, particularly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable ones.

Is acceptance of child labour a social norm in Bangladesh?

1. Child labour as a social issue The total working children population between 5 and 17 years old is estimated at 7.4 million2 in Bangladesh out of 150 million people. The vast majority of these children come from impoverished families and the income generated by boys and girls at streets, factories and households is supposed to contribute to the family income. The number of children engaged in child labour is increasing along with the number of children living on the streets.3 There is a high demand for employing children as a cheap labour force, hard workers and obedient workforce in the local market.

These children have their rights to education and others brutally denied, have very limited access to health care and are more vulnerable to violence and abuse than other children.

2 http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/newdelhi/ipec/responses/bangladesh/index.htm

3 According to the Estimation of the Size of Street Children and their Projection for Major Urban Areas of Bangladesh 2005, Ministry of Social Welfare and UNDP) the total numbers of street children in 11 major urban areas estimates 429,813. More than 90% of these children were in six divisional cities.

3 Bangladesh was one of the first countries to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1990. However, the country is yet to fully implement its articles by undertaking appropriate legislative and administrative measures as well as addressing prevailing practices and attitudes against children. The international CRC Committee reiterated a number of observations on child labour in the country in 2009, recommending that the State party should take urgent measures to monitor and address exploitative forms of child labour and to enforce the law to explicitly prohibit employment of children under 18 in hazardous work; consider ratifying the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment ILO Convention (No. 138); and to seek technical assistance from ILO4, UNICEF and relevant partners for the development of gender sensitive and child-friendly rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for child labourers.

In terms of social norms and perceptions, it seems that a child involved in labour or in any income generation activity is no longer considered a ‘child’ in Bangladesh but an important labour force. As Bichieri (2006) would say the script associated with the category ‘impoverished child’ in much of Bangladeshi society includes ‘labour force’. Although in a way a child is still considered a child since he/she is not perceived as a fully fledged adult, the idea of what a child from poor background can do [or is encouraged to do] is incompatible with the idea of a child under the CRC. Therefore, what is urgent needed is a re- categorization of the ‘impoverished child’, changing the script associated with this category in the country. In other words, the Bangladeshis need to re-visit the way the children are perceived and what is expected from and for them.

Currently the acceptance of child labour seems to be very high among the Bangladeshi society as they perceive that there are no or very few chances to socially include a child who comes from poor families if not through the labour avenue, perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty and social injustice for millions of children and their families. Without education, a person will always have the worst jobs with bad salaries. It is fairly uncontroversial that across different contexts education strongly correlates with income.

But why are families sending their children to work instead of school? Why are parents expecting their children to be the bread winner instead of relying this task on the adults’ hands and allowing the full development of their children? If they had an option and an enabling environment with economic alternatives, they certainly would re-visit this country-

4 International Labour Organization

4 wide practice. But it seems that the impoverished Bangladeshi families are in a trap as the society seems to perceive the social role of their children as legitimate part of the labour force that had always been there to help employers to make more money and to support middle and upper class families to raise their children.

I argue that somehow the impoverished families activate a script (Bicchieri, 2006) that was socially determined for them when challenged by poverty. Actually, the same script is also activated by the privileged families and the employers who hire the children as it seems that they do not see it as a social issue. It seems that there is complicity among different actors towards the working children situation in the country, perpetuating these social practices. According to Bicchieri (2006) “social norms are embedded in scripts, thus they are part of a complex network of values, practices, etc”. They activate and implement the survival strategies (which include child labour) like many families in similar conditions do as it would be their destiny. People sometimes even verbalize that it is better to work than starve. At least the children are able to eat and help their families when employed as domestic workers or vendors. It looks like that they do not see other alternatives for those children and their families. High acceptance of child labour is considered an important mean to reduce family economic burden.

Why is child labour a common practice in Bangladesh, given that it is not present in that magnitude —and even strongly sanctioned against—in many societies? If we take Bicchieri’s social norms framework, the widely spread practice of child labour among families that come from poor backgrounds can be considered a social norm in Bangladesh. According to her theoretical framework, there are conditional preferences for a social norm to exist, which depend on empirical expectations (the individual believes that a sufficiently large part of the relevant population conforms to a certain behaviour when faced by the same situation) and on normative expectations (the individual believes that a sufficiently large part of the relevant population expects him/her to conform to a certain behaviour when faced by the same situation). Many people believe that families facing poverty are supposed to send their children to work to generate income for the family members. Individuals from poor backgrounds believe that, a significant part of the poor population sends the children to work to complement the family income (empirical expectations). In addition, they believe that significant part of the population expects them to send their children to work given their social and economic situation and that somehow they would put pressure on them if they do not send their children to work (normative expectations).

5 How can the child rights to education, health, protection, participation, etc., be fulfilled in a social environment that enables and reinforces child labour and exploitation as a common social practice? It seems that the social norms approach needs to be brought on board in order to address this problem. My assumption is that if we uncover the issue from the social expectations point of view, new lights will be brought on board to help us to better understand the issue and improve the way we are addressing it. The central questions would be what do we expect and desire for the children, what their roles in the society are, and who is responsible to realize the families’ expectations and desires for the children.

It actually leads us to a much bigger discussion, namely, the social perception of childhood in Bangladesh. What is the social status and roles of a child? How do the Bangladeshis perceive a child? What are the social schemata and scripts associated with the Bangladeshi children? Here we understand a schema as a cognitive structure that represents knowledge about people, events, etc and involves beliefs, expectation and even behaviour rules and script as a set of values, believes, networks, etc (Bicchieri, 2006).

2. Social perceptions of childhood

The status of children in Bangladesh is deeply rooted in social norms, attitudes and practices; despite the fact that existing domestic legislation, policy and the CRC principles and articles are in favour of children. Blanchet (2008) affirms that the Bangladeshi society does not consider ‘every human being below the age of 18 as a child”. The recognition of a child as a human being who has special rights to ensure his/her rights to survival, full development and participation is not clearly stated for every child, positioning he/she in a very vulnerable situation. This has contributed enormously to the non recognition of children as an individual subject of rights and therefore, entitled to protection and all opportunities available to enhance their mental, physical and social development. There are people and institutions that should ensure the realization of these rights - what UNICEF calls duty bearers in its Human Rights Based Approach to Programming. A boy involved in child labour or earning an income seems to be no longer considered a ‘child’. Rather, there is a high demand for employing children as a cheap labour force, hard workers and obedient workforce in the market. The script associated with ‘any child’ in general is different from the script associated with the ‘impoverished child’ (i.e. those children who work). Working children

6 seem to not be considered children subject of rights and this makes it a very difficult social problem and a serious human rights issue.

A shift in this perception is urgently needed to re-position children in the Bangladeshi society, fostering the required social norms changes to realize child rights in the country for every and each child.

The idea, perceptions and expectations of childhood continue to vary according to factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, social class, wealth, disability etc (Blanchet, 2008). In other words, ideas of what children should do and are capable to do at different ages (e.g. the expectation to work or marry), depends on local custom, children’s circumstances and perceptions of childhood by adults, which may have a profound and detrimental impact on the realization of children’s rights. According to (Blanchet, 2008), this has been a determining factor for child protection in Bangladesh.

It is important to highlight that historically, children were perceived by the society according to their different social roles and contexts. Families and its members used to organize themselves in different ways along the humanity history according to its social, economic and geographical contexts (Aries, 1975). In the old societies, for instance, children’s socialization and the knowledge and values transmitted to children were not the parents’ duties. The child used to learn and understand the world by observing and helping the adults with their daily activities, including work. According to Aries (1975), during the feudal system in the Western societies, children had no specific role and stayed anonymous until they became adults. There was no notion of childhood as currently perceived by many societies.

The phenomenon of child labour is not unique to the case of Bangladesh. In fact, in pre- capitalist societies that went through the early stages of industrialization, the child and adolescent were perceived as important labour force to complement family’s income. In the rural societies, the younger family members have an important role in the production cycle of crops, helping with seeds preparation, plantation and harvest and dealing with animals. The childhood at that time seemed to be reduced to the early stages of the childhood. As soon as the child could talk, walk and be by himself/herself, he/she would be mixed with the adults but with lower social status. Aries (1975) recalls that from the later XVII century and beginning of XVIII century, with the advent of pre-industrial societies in the Western world, a considerable change in the way children were socialized took place: the school appears as an institution for children’s socialization. Learn how to write and read was a need to be

7 fulfilled to better be placed in the emerging working arrangements. Therefore there was a clear need to better prepare the children for a better inclusion in the new way of production. The families tended to accept it and started looking at children with more affection and the feeling of caring and responsibility. But only the ones who were economically better off could afford to send their children to school which means that the children from economically disadvantaged groups struggled to participate in this new way of life and were kept out of school.

Hence, the industrialization and political, social and economic modernization of the so-called Western developed societies have changed the role and functions of the families – and their children, particularly from the XIX century on-wards. They started to value children, taking them out of the anonymous world and even limiting their number to better take care of them. Along the XX century, the family suffered several transformations but was kept as the place for primary socialization of children together with the school. Parsons (1967) affirms that even with the high number of divorces and new families’ arrangements in the Western societies, the place for the family is still kept as the residential unit and primary option for people to leave.

Although the above historical perspective helps us to understand the role of children along the years, unfortunately, does not focus on the Eastern societie’s reality. Apart from Blanchet (2008), there are not many studies on the social role of Bangladeshi children along the history. What is quite clear is that there are different perceptions of children in the country and even the word “children” to denominate the different life cycles of a person from 0 to 18 year old is not the same in Bangla language (Blanchet, 2008). There is not a single word for ‘child’ in Bangla For instance, ‘shishukal’ defines a stage from birth up to 5 years-old. However, Shishu is a common Bangla word for child meaning somebody who ‘does not understand.’ Then there are subsequent stages in the life cycle of a person within 18 years of age: such as balok-balika and kishor-kishori for pre-adolescent and adolescent. Along the life cycles, there are vast discrepancies in the rights that children are able to exercise. For example, middle class children and the young domestic servants working in their homes may be roughly the same age but they have profoundly different roles, rights and obligations. 5

5 Therese Blanchet is one of the few researchers who have conducted studies to better understand childhood perceptions in Bangladesh. She found that children are a separate social category defined by age. Balok-balika and kishor-kishori are mostly used in the literature and by the educated community. Poor, peasant or illiterate people do not use these words in their day to day business. Furthermore, addresses are different in different dialects in the country.

8 It seems that that after the first years of childhood, as soon as the child can be himself/herself, he/she are perceived as nearly self-sustainable individual with a specific roles in the family – unless he/she comes from privileged families. In that case, the period socially defined for the development of the child would be increased, allowing the child to better develop himself/herself, through study and other social interactions like social networks, sports, etc. Different scripts seem to be activated for different stages and social and economic backgrounds of the children.

3. Critical evaluation of interventions

The Child Protection programme of UNICEF in Bangladesh aims to create a culture of respect for children’s protection rights through development of child-rights-based and gender-appropriate policies, advocacy, change of societal attitudes, strengthened capacity in government and civil society responses to protection issues and the establishment of protective mechanisms against abuse, exploitation and violence. Communication for Development interventions are supposed to support the Child Protection programme to promote the desired behavior and social changes to ensure that Bangladeshi society (children, adolescents, parents and care-givers; community leaders, civil society, media, NGOs, private sector, and local government; national government and members of Parliament) is knowledgeable on the right of every child to be protected and fully supported, recognizing all children as subjects of rights in line with CRC. Therefore their rights to education, health, non-discrimination, participation, etc., need to be realized regardless of their social or economic background. But unless we change the social perception of children (every child is subject of right), it would be very difficult to gather public willingness and social support for the full implementation of international conventions and national laws and policies in favor of children.

In 2008 and 2009, around one third of child protection programme funds have been dedicated to communication. However, advocacy has been conducted on an ad hoc basis, behavior and social change activities spread between different projects, particularly the empowerment of adolescent (Kishori Abihjan) and children at risk one (PCAR). Apart from the Kishori project, the programme has not yet assessed the results of these efforts in terms of behaviour and social norms change. The programme has a community participation approach to ensure the establishment of enabling environment for children, discussing issues like early marriage, child labour, violence and others in order to enhance widespread community support to change social behaviours and norms. Community involvement in Kishori Abhijan is

9 strengthened through the establishment and organization of local support groups with the participation of parents, community leaders and the youth. Involvement of adolescents and adults has also been enhanced through Interactive Popular Theatre activities, contributing to the improvement of community understanding and tolerance toward children and adolescents, particularly the adolescent girl. Adolescent Centres, established in the communities, are places for get together as well as to discuss social issues.

On June 12th, 2010, during the observations of the World Day Against Child Labour, UNICEF, ILO, the Government of Bangladesh and partners launched a nation-wide communication campaign with two main objectives: i) To raise awareness against child labour among community members and policy makers, highlighting the fact that children below the age of 14 years-old should not work according to Bangladeshi law and policies and their right to education should be fulfilled and ii) To ensure that parents and employers are guaranteeing the rights of the working children above 14 years-old to education (formal or non-formal), safe work environment and payment as per national laws and policies, migrating from child labour to a safe working environment for children.

It is important to highlight that Bangladesh government had adopted the National Child Labour Elimination Policy 2010 with a view to withdraw children from hazardous and worst form of labour; support families to break the poverty cycle so that children remains out of labour and provide scholarships or other incentive for working children to continue education in harmony with the CRC. According to local law, children above 14 years-old can be employed in light work under certain conditions. Prior to engaging a child above 14 in any work, an employer should discuss with the child and his/her guardians in order to fix clear stipulations of the job. In these stipulations the following matters should be taken into account and would be applicable on a sectoral basis:  Refrain from engaging children in worst forms of labour;  Maintain a daily work list;  Specify daily working hours;  Provide at least a day’s weekly holiday;  Providing opportunity for education or skills development training for the child;  Pay wages regularly at rates mutually agreed upon; and  Notify at least one month ahead of terminating the child’s employment, etc.

10 But I would say that the starting point for UNICEF interventions (both protection and communication ones) is the concrete situation of individuals themselves (the children and their families) and not necessarily their expectations and the expectations of the others who interact with them (relationships, networks). Although we always bring facts and figures to the discussions and dialogues at local level, promoting local analysis of the situation (triple A approach: Assessment; Analyses and Actions) as per the Human Rights Approach to Programming, the expectations of community members, children and their parents are not necessarily addressed (empirical expectations and normative expectations) because we have not assessed these expectations. Although we have some educated guesses, we simply do not know exactly what the drivers and motivators that will lead to behaviour and social norms changes. I argue that we are putting more emphasis at the individual level than at community/networks level, undermining the influence and power of the community (or communities) and networks at the person’s behaviour. One’s behaviour would conform to what one believes others do and to what one believes others expect them to do (Bicchieri, 2006).

What are the individuals’ and communities’ expectations for the children, particularly the children from the poor backgrounds? Research needs to tell us what the expectations for children are and then the programme could try to re-categorize the Bangladeshi children, especially the 7.4 million working children, fostering local and national dialogue to stimulate Bangladeshi society to develop a new script from these children that would fit in individuals’ and communities’ expectations.

It could be a case of pluralistic ignorance, understanding it as a “cognitive state in which one’s attitudes and preferences are different from those of similarly situation, even if public behaviour is identical” (Bicchieri, 2006). Maybe nobody is aware of one’s true expectations for their children, repeating the same practices for years and years. Deeply inside, parents and care-givers may want to send their children to school instead of work but they believe the others think the right thing to do is to send the children to work to help them to deal with poverty and the others maybe are thinking the same but nobody says anything. Uncovering and sharing this common thinking and expectations, establishing common knowledge could be the starting point for paving the way for social norms change. Therefore, the programme could try to ask these questions to reveal the true expectations of parents and communities. But it is important to highlight that in the case of child labour, economic alternatives should

11 be available for the working children families in order to minimize the economic loses that might happen when the child labour will be abolished.

4. Revealing expectations to address social norms

We believe that social norms change starts with social debates, common platform and policy dialogue. In addition, we need to build systems and mechanisms to offer alternatives and support people who want to foster a social norm change. Child labour was chosen as an entry point to start fostering social norms change for social transformation in Bangladesh. I argue that we should review our strategies to bring on board the social expectations around the social role of the impoverished children and their families, starting from the working children families and their employees. What are the social norms that apply to those children? What are the alternatives for their families? What are the empirical and normative expectations in this case?

Social norms change requires a thorough analysis of the society and its individuals (sociological, anthropological and psychological analysis) to help us to understand the underlying and basic causes why communities have established social practices that are hampering their development process and denying human rights. In addition, it needs to be openly discussed and addressed collectively through a common platform of action agreed by all the members of the group or forum. The controversies and extensive debates that come from this kind of different stakeholders’ forums are healthy and essential for the social debate and change. But instead of only focusing on the concrete and visible problem (children are working, therefore their rights to school and full mental, physical and social development are being denied), we need to bring the invisible element emerging from social norms which are very much concrete and real for most of the children in Bangladesh.

But how can we do it? I think research and investigation are the answer. We do not have enough knowledge in hands to re-shape the child protection interventions and its communication activities. New set of information and messages needs to be developed jointly with communities and stakeholders. Local debates and policy advocacy alone and with old messages and knowledge will not lead us to sustainable social norms change. We have to bring the unseen but very real element of social norms. The research will provide the needed information to UNICEF and its partners in order to foster more focused and perhaps more sustainable actions. The common platforms and plans for collective actions and networking

12 should therefore address the invisible but very much present element of social expectations for the impoverished working children in Bangladesh, re-writing their scripts.

Bibliographic References:

ARRIÉS, P (1975). História Social da Criança e da Família. Editora Zahar, Rio de Janeiro.

BICCHIERI, Cristina (2006). The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms, Cambridge. BLANCHET, Therese (2008). Lost Innocence, Stolen Childhood. The University Press Ltda. Dhaka, Bangladesh. PARSONS, Talcot (1967). La Família em la Sociedad Urbana Insdustrial de los Estados

Unidos . Ensayos de Teoria Sociológica. Buenos Aires, Paidos.