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 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.
1
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/newdelhi/ipec/responses/bangladesh/index.htm
2
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 precapitalist 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.
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 reshaped. 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.
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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.
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
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/newdelhi/ipec/responses/bangladesh/index.htm
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.
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International Labour Organization
2
3
4
incompatible with the idea of a child under the CRC. Therefore, what is urgent needed is a recategorization 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 countrywide 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.
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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).
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).
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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
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
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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 precapitalist 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
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
8
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
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
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.
5
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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
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
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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.
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
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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
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?
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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
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.
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