© Richard HuangIn Bangladesh, millions of children between the ages of five and seventeen are driven by poverty into child labour.
While planning the trip, I had considered covering this subject. But I had no idea where I might find child labourers and worried that their employers would try to stop me, so I set the idea aside.
© Richard HuangThat day, we visited a shipyard on the riverbank. The surrounding area was crowded with workshops of every size, where parts such as propellers and anchors were forged for the yard. Following the glow of the furnaces, I spotted someone swinging a hammer. Wasn’t that a child at work?
© Richard HuangLooking around, I realized that children were working in almost every workshop. Their hands were black with grease and their hair and faces grimy, yet they worked earnestly and hard. I had thought they would be nearly impossible to find, only to stumble upon them without the slightest effort.
© Richard HuangCuriously, most of the children faced the camera quite openly, and their employers made no obvious attempt to interfere. I asked a local friend: If child labour is so widespread here, doesn’t the government do anything? Hasn’t the international community taken notice? Aren’t the children unhappy? Aren’t their parents heartbroken?
© Richard HuangMy friend said that years of exposure by photographers had brought the issue to the local government’s attention, while international agencies and NGOs had kept up the pressure. Conditions had already improved to some extent. Employers, for their part, said they took on children at the parents’ request. Many families could not afford to send their children to school, so they sent them to work instead—both to supplement the household income and to keep them from roaming the streets and becoming street children. Employers also found children cheaper to hire and easier to manage. As for the children, they were spared the abuse of life on the streets, and earning money gave them a measure of dignity at home. The work might be hard and exhausting, but at least they had something to eat.
© Richard HuangSpeaking of food, I had brought Lindt chocolates all the way from Canada, intending to give them to the children I photographed. But the weather was so hot that they melted into chocolate syrup. So I bought some individual bags of potato chips from a nearby kiosk and handed them out instead. Their delighted expressions and eager eyes made it clear that they were hungry.
© Richard HuangPerhaps this is simply the reality. Despite the injustice and helplessness of it all, the international community, the local government, the parents, and the children themselves can do little but seek a temporary balance amid a tangle of problems, so that life can carry on.
© Richard HuangBesides photographing the children at work, I also took some close-up portraits. At that distance, their eyes became the focus. Compared with those of adults, the children’s eyes were clear and bright, despite the harsh conditions in which they lived. They seemed like blank sheets of paper, as yet unmarked, waiting for life to inscribe its experience upon them. Yet unlike children who can study and play happily at school, these children would soon lose that clarity; the blank pages would quickly fill with scars. That is why the issue of child labour demands our attention.
© Richard HuangJune 12 each year is the World Day Against Child Labour. After celebrating Children’s Day on June 1, do we give this other date any thought? Do we ever stop to consider the countless child labourers around the world who make our clothes and everyday goods?