Ahad Md Abdul, Parry Yvonne Karen, Willis Eileen, Ullah Shahid, Ankers Matthew
Department of Rural Sociology and Development, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet-3100, Bangladesh.
College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, SA, 5042, Australia.
Heliyon. 2023 Sep 9;9(9):e19031. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19031. eCollection 2023 Sep.
Child labourers are highly prone to maltreatment mostly perpetrated by members of their immediate family as well as employers and co-workers. This maltreatment is considered to be a serious public health issue. However, little is known about this form of violence.
This study aimed to explore the views of key informants on the prevalence and attributes of perpetrators of the maltreatment of child labourers in Bangladesh.
The key experts were paediatricians, journalists, academics, and government bureaucrats such as policy makers and Non-Government Organisation employees working in the area of child abuse or labour relations. Interviews were purposefully conducted via TEAMS with 17 expert participants. A thematic analysis using NVivo was used to analyse the data.
The key informants were of the opinion that the prevalence of the maltreatment of child labourers was unknown. However, they were of the view that physical maltreatment of child labourers occurred between 70% and 100% of the time, while emotional abuse and neglect was estimated to be 100% followed by 50% for financial exploitation. Child maltreatment is more likely to occur in informal workplace environments. Biological and foster parents were considered the primary perpetrators, while employers and adult co-workers were considered secondary perpetrators. Perpetrators of child labour maltreatment were often characterized as having a history of childhood maltreatment themselves, a lack of knowledge of social awareness and parenting, and suffer from economic difficulties.
The finding also calls into question the validity of key informant interviewing. Only the journalists, academics and medical experts had first-hand knowledge of the maltreatment of child labourers with experts in the NGO sector and government policy makers lacking detailed knowledge of the field.
童工极易遭受虐待，施虐者大多是其直系亲属、雇主和同事。这种虐待被视为一个严重的公共卫生问题。然而，人们对这种暴力形式知之甚少。
本研究旨在探讨关键信息提供者对孟加拉国童工虐待行为的发生率及施虐者特征的看法。
关键专家包括儿科医生、记者、学者以及政府官员，如从事虐待儿童或劳动关系领域工作的政策制定者和非政府组织雇员。通过Teams平台对17名专家参与者进行了有针对性的访谈。使用NVivo进行主题分析以分析数据。
关键信息提供者认为童工受虐待的发生率尚不清楚。然而，他们认为童工遭受身体虐待的情况在70%至100%之间，而情感虐待和忽视估计为100%，经济剥削为50%。童工虐待在非正规工作场所环境中更易发生。亲生父母和养父母被视为主要施虐者，而雇主和成年同事被视为次要施虐者。童工虐待的施虐者通常具有自身童年受虐史、缺乏社会意识和育儿知识以及经济困难等特征。
该研究结果也对关键信息提供者访谈的有效性提出了质疑。只有记者、学者和医学专家对童工受虐待情况有第一手了解，而非政府组织部门的专家和政府政策制定者缺乏该领域的详细知识。
