Child labour and education – A survey of slum settlements in Dhaka (Bangladesh)

•15% of 6–14-year-old children in Dhaka’s slums are out of school and engaged in full time work.•Average working hours are well beyond the 42-hour limit set by national legislation.•36.1% of boys and 34.6% of girls reported experiencing extreme fatigue.•Almost two thirds of the surveyed children who started working before the age of ten could not read a single Bengali word correctly.