Current Situation of Child Domestic Workers in Bangladesh Almost all analysts working on child domestic workers in Bangladesh agree that child domestic workers generally work in a terrible state. Regarding the pervasiveness of the problems of child workers, in Ain O Salish Kendra v Bangladesh,8 the High Court Division (HCD) of the SC has observed that ‘the gravity of the problems of child labour spreads throughout the country and across multifarious industries and work types where children are engaged in earning for the family.’ Thus, sufferings of child domestic workers are well documented elsewhere and need not be retold here in any great detail. Typically, children engaged in domestic work in Bangladesh have to work for unusually long hours - well above the official maximum number of working hours for workers in the industrial sector. Most of them work seven days a week without any weekly holiday. Generally, these working children are either paid awfully inadequately or even not paid at all. These children are almost invariably cut off from their own families and are not in a position to bargain with their employers or complain about the maltreatments which they may suffer. The incidents of children employed as domestic workers haplessly suffering from persistent abuse and violence has routinely surfaced in media reports. It is plausible to assume that the reported incidents are only a fraction of the real number of incidents as many such incidents may have escaped the public glare. The sufferings and deprivation of child domestic workers are not limited to physical abuse and torture; rather more often than not they would also have to bear many types of mental sufferings which often remain neglected.9 8 Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), Represented by Its Executive Director and Another v Bangladesh, Represented by the Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Manpower, Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka and Others (2011) 31 BLD (HCD) 36 [ASK v Bangladesh]. 9 For such a study, see Shatil Ara, Tunazzina Iqbal and Khorshed Alam ‘From Open Fields to Secluded Households: Child Domestic Workers in Bangladesh’ (Alternative Movement for Resources and Freedom Society, Dhaka, September 2011) <http://www.laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications-and- resources/AMRF%20report-%20From%20Open%20Fields%20to%20Secluded%20Households.pdf> 20th May 2014 [Ara]. 4 at