Children working in Bangladesh’s leather industry and Nepal’s adult entertainment sector have co-developed ways to improve their lives as participants in Child Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia (CLARISSA), a major IDS-led participatory programme focusing on worst forms of child labour.
Children and small business owners generated and used their own evidence to explore the factors that drive children into child labour, and businesses to hire them. They organised in multiple action research groups to generate innovative solutions to the complex issues that they identified.
Normally children either work or go to school, and there are big disincentives for working children to continue their studies. In both countries, however, children persuaded local schools to support those who wanted to continue their education: by adjusting timetables, providing dedicated teacher support, reducing fees and providing learning materials.
Evidence generated by CLARISSA was cited seven times in a 2024 UN report on the exploitation of child performers in the adult entertainment sector. It has been used to deepen thinking on child labour in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and to engage with policymakers in Bangladesh and Nepal.
Learn about the daily lives of working children and situate their lived experience in an immersive look at the businesses and urban neighbourhoods where spaces for the worst forms of child labour are created.
