January 26: A recent study carried out at carpet and garment industries of Nepal shows that child labour is declining.    
The study recently conducted by assistant lecturer of Nepal Commerce Campus and researcher Dilaram Bhandari shows that use of children below 18 years at carpet industries and garment industries has declined by 6.66 per cent and 1.63 per cent respectively.    
The study was conducted as part of a programme of the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security with technical support of the Central Bureau of Statistics.    
The use of child labour below 18 years, which was 50 per cent in carpet industries in 1993, has dropped to 6.66 per cent in 2021, said researcher Bhandari.    
The study was carried out at 290 carpet industries and 183 garment industries of 20 districts, he shared. Bhandari added that child labour is decreasing every year due to social awareness and education.    
The study took into consideration the issues such as gender, age, region, income, education and social security of 8,483 workers working in production sector of industries, shared researcher Bhandari.    
Around 4.75 per cent Indians were found working in these industries while 0.02 per cent was from other countries and the remaining were Nepali workers. The study shows that among the Nepali labourers, a majority were from the Tamang, Magar, Gurung and Sherpa communities.    
The worker of 20-49 years age group constituted 80 per cent of the human resource and they worked 52 hours in average in a week, Bhandari said adding that the working hours were more than that stipulated by the Labour Act of Nepal.    
Nepal’s law has determined an average of 48 hours of work in a week. The monthly income of male labourers working at carpet industries was found to be Rs 15,923 per month while it was Rs 17,632 at garment industries, Bhandari shared. --RSS