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half the girls ages 13 to 15. At Shanti-
pur High School, where Rafi used to
study, the teachers kept careful track
of their female pupils. They learned
that in most cases, those who dropped
out had moved to rural communities
and enrolled in schools outside the
city. At least 15 girls were forced into
illegal, underage marriage. It’s 15 too
many, the school’s head teacher Saha
says—–but it’s also fewer than he had
feared. What he hadn’t anticipated was
the impact the pandemic would have
on the boys. “It was beyond our expec-
tation and imagination.”
Secondary education isn’t free in
Bangladesh, and tuition fees average
approximately 3,000 taka ($35) a year.
In a country where 1 in 5 people sur-
vived on less than $1.90 per day be-
fore the pandemic, the costs of statio-
nery, textbooks, and uniforms also add
up fast. Girls ages 11 to 16 typically re-
ceive a small uniform stipend and tu-
ition subsidy of up to 3,500 taka ($40)
each year from the government in an
attempt to counter the threat of child
marriage and incentivize their families
to keep them in school. “But for fam-
ilies with sons, education presents a
significant cost,” says Safi Khan, direc-
tor of education for BRAC. “It’s an im-
possible situation, and there is very lit-
tle support.”
One Of the first signs of economic
crisis is when adolescent boys begin
dropping out of school, says Tuomo
Poutiainen, Bangladesh director for
the ILO. “It is gendered,” he says.
When schools were closed, most fami-
lies felt that sending their daughters
to work was too much of a risk, but
that sons might present an emergency
source of income.
Despite millions of dollars in for-
eign aid supporting girls’ education,
child-rights advocates in Bangladesh
tell TIME they are struggling to sum-
mon equal support for the thousands
of adolescent boys who have dropped
out of school since the outbreak of
COVID-19. It’s as if donors are “inten-
tionally blind” to child labor, says Tony
Michael Gomes, director of World
Vision Bangladesh. “I see a huge dis-
connection... If you really ask what
exactly they’re funding and if their re-
sources are impacting the lives of the
children, the answer might be no.”
Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative
to Bangladesh, agrees. “I don’t want
to de-emphasize the risk that girls are
under,” he says. “But we must not lose
sight of the specific needs of boys.”
For many parents, the costs of their
children’s education have collided with
mounting debts, leaving them with
few options but to pull their sons from
their classrooms. “I felt terrible,” says
Helena, whose 11-year-old, Alomgir,
threw his exercise books in the trash
when she told him he couldn’t return
to school in September.
When Alomgir’s friends left the
village and traipsed along the track
to the local elementary school a few
days later, Helena found her son sob-
bing in the shade of their wooden hut.
“When I saw him crying, I cried too,”
she says. She understands his pain.
As a child, Helena was top of her class
until her brother forced her to drop out
of school and marry an older man. She
was only 12 years old.
Helena has already had to reconcile
herself with depriving one son of an
education: five years ago, her husband
fell sick, and the family had to send
Alomgir’s then 11-year-old brother to
work at a brick kiln, where he earns
300 taka ($3.50) a day. “We thought
that we could ensure the rest of our
sons were educated by sacrificing the
eldest one,” Helena says. But when
the countrywide lockdown began in
March 2020, the kiln closed for four
months, and the family had to take
out a 40,000-taka ($465) loan to cover
rice and medical care. Two years later,
they still owe 30,000 taka ($350), and
Helena fears it’s Alomgir who will con-
tinue to pay the price.
Data on child labor in Bangladesh isnotoriously scant. According to the ILO,
rates appeared to be decreasing before
the pandemic, but there hasn’t been a
nationwide, government-led survey on
child labor since 2013. In 2019, UNICEF
conducted its own study, reporting that
1 in 10 boys ages 12 to 14 in Bangladesh
was working full time. Incomes vary,
but research suggests the majority of
boys under the age of 14 earn less than
$40 per month.
“We don’t have updated statistics
since the pandemic [began], so we
don’t know exactly what the impact is
going to be on child labor, but we know
anecdotally that it’s a lot worse,” says
UNICEF’s Yett.
Even before Bangladesh ratified the
convention, its constitution decreed
that “hazardous” child labor, such as
brick breaking or leather tanning, was
illegal—but the current law does not
prohibit children under the age of 14
from providing for their families in in-
formal sectors, such as domestic work
or agriculture. (Because they are vic-
tims of exploitation, TIME has chosen
not to publish the faces or surnames of
children in this story.) Repercussions
for those who employ children in any
industry are rare, say child-rights ad-
vocates, citing an incident in July 2021
when a fire broke out in a juice factory
and killed at least 52 employees, includ-
ing at least 16 children as young as 11.
The owners were briefly arrested and
released on bail, but the court case is
still pending.
For all the demonstrable dangers,
many factory owners say they have
seen a marked increase in the num-
ber of parents going from door to door
over the past two years, offering their
small sons up for work. One business-
man in Narayanganj, a riverside city
southeast of Dhaka, tells TIME that
he has employed approximately 10
children in his garment factory since
the start of the pandemic. The young-
est was 8 years old. “Their age doesn’t
matter. Rather, can he cope? Can he
deliver?”
The businessman argues that he’s
supporting the families the government
has failed. “We have too many people
in this country and too few resources,”
he says. “Education gives no guarantee
to [the children’s] future.” A few meters‘I feltterrible.’