by Xinhua writer Huang Ya'nan

    DHAKA, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Akkas Akhter and Moni Hossain, ages 10 and 12, look nothing like the happy, carefree children in other countries.

    While Moni has to toil 15 hours a day in a factory churning out window grids, Akkas has to work three more hours a day in a hotel washing dishes.

    There is no time left after a long working day to enjoy the happiness other kids may derive from going to school, playing soccer or watching television.

    Both, however, go to bed with a lingering sense of satisfaction that what they earn from their hard work is a real help to their respective families.

    "Now I can make money and give my family some support," Moni, whose family comes from a village in southern Bangladesh, declared proudly.

    "To a poor family like us," said Akkas, "1,500 taka (a month) is really helpful to my parents" (1 dollar = 70 taka).

    Bangladesh's annual per-capita income in 2008 was 599 U.S. dollars.

    Akkas had to drop out of school after just one year, while Moni was even less lucky as he never set foot inside a school room. His family simply couldn't afford it.

    Both, however, are now pinning their hopes on working hard to earn and save money so as to change their own lives and hopefully that of the younger ones in their families as well.

    Akkas and Moni are epitomes of the child labor problem in Bangladesh, where the second National Child Labor Survey has estimated the number of working children at 4.9 million, or 14.2 percent of the country's 35.06 million children in the age group of five to 14 years.

    The total population of working children between the ages of five and 17 years could be as many as 7.9 million.

    Under the auspices of the United Nations and other international aid agencies and donor countries, the government of Bangladesh has been working on the child labor problem, starting from its root -- extreme forms of poverty.

    A while ago, the country has put a regulation into effect that prohibits employing under-age workers.

    A labor ministry official told Xinhua that once found, the employers would be fined.

    The government has also been tackling the just-above-the-root cause -- education.

    Between July 2006 and June of this year, the government's Eradication of Hazardous Child Labor Project has provided 30,000 children in six major Bangladeshi towns with informal education and up to six months of skill trainings.

    Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid assured Xinhua that his country had achieved a lot in the past few years in solving the child labor problem by attaching importance to education, nutrition, health, water supply, sanitation as well as other needs of the country's children.

Special report: Global News Day for Children