Child labour and education in megacity slums
Chair
Larry Elliott @guardian - Economics editor, The Guardian
Speakers
Kevin Watkins @KevinAtSave - Chief Executive, Save the Children UK
Phil Bloomer @pbloomer - Executive Director, Business and Human Rights Resource Centre
Maria Quattri - Research Fellow, ODI
Mushtaque Chowdhury - Vice-Chairperson and advisor to the chairperson, BRAC, Bangladesh (via video link)
Description
Child labour has dropped off the international development agenda. Yet millions of school-age children continue to make an early transition into the world of work, often into hazardous occupations. Child labour is both a symptom and a cause of poverty, educational disadvantage and vulnerability. This is recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals – but national action and international cooperation to tackle child labour is too limited.
Do we understand the true scale of children working, and the severity of the problem? How can we make education a key part of the strategy to end child labour? And how can we ensure that governments both implement and regulate legislation that prohibits companies from hiring children as labourers?
Launching the findings of a major survey on child labour and education in Dhaka, Bangladesh, this event explores what it will take to get children out of the workforce and into school.