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(New York) – The Afghan government is failing to protect tens of thousands of children, some as young as 5, from hazardous conditions in the workplace, in violation of Afghanistan’s labor laws.

Helal, 10, works as a brick maker at a brick kiln outside Kabul. He told Human Rights Watch that the brick mold is heavy and his hands hurt working with wet clay. Helal doesn’t go to school because he has to work.  © 2016 Bethany Matta/Human Rights Watch

The 31-page report, “‘They Bear All the Pain’: Hazardous Child Labor in Afghanistan,” documents how child workers work dangerous jobs in Afghanistan’s carpet industry; as bonded labor in brick kilns; and as metal workers. They perform tasks that could result in illness, injury, or even death due to hazardous working conditions and poor enforcement of safety and health standards. Many children who work under those conditions combine the burdens of a job with school, or forego education altogether. Working compels many children in Afghanistan to leave school prematurely. Only half of children involved in child labor attend school. 

“Thousands of Afghan children risk their health and safety every day to put food on the family table,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Afghan government needs to do a better job of protecting its children – and the country’s future – by enforcing the law prohibiting dangerous work for children.”

Read a text description of this video

Azizullah
12-year-old carpet weaver

My name is Azizullah. I’m 12.  I’ve been weaving carpets for about seven years. There are 11 of us brothers and sisters and we earn our living for our family through carpet weaving.


Ahmad Shuja
Researcher
Human Rights Watch

About a quarter of all Afghan children are engaged in child labor. These children work as carpet weavers on looms at home, they work in the metal works industry, they work as shoe shiners, as street workers. They work as bonded labor in brick kilns. Many of them work long hours under difficult circumstances doing work that is injurious to their health and could also cause death.


Sajjad
13-year-old metal worker

My name is Sajjad.  I’m 13 years old. I get lots of cuts but one time the [metal] sheet cut my leg. The sheet was on the shop floor. When I was walking by, my leg got caught on it and I got a big gash.

Ali Eftekhari 
Spokesperson
Ministry of Labor

Government of Afghanistan Children under the age of 18 are forced to work because of poverty and unemployment [of their parents.] 36% of the population in Afghanistan lives under the poverty line. A more serious problem is the lack of awareness among the people about the rights of children.

Ahmad Shuja
Researcher
Human Rights Watch

Under Afghan law, children between the ages of 15 and 17 are allowed to work provided that the work is less than 35 hours a week, represents a form of skilled training such as learning to be a tailor or metal smith, and the work is not physically harmful to the child. Children 14 or below working in any form of labor is illegal. But thousands of these children do work, often in circumstances that are harmful to their health and well-being.

Sayed Maroof Sadat
Principal
Muhammad Alam Faizzad High School, Kabul

Several years ago, one of our students worked as a mechanic. He was under a car when the jack gave way and he was killed instantly. His name was Haseeb. He was a graduate of year 12. These incidents happen, these accidents.


Ahmad Shuja
Researcher
Human Rights Watch

The carpet sector has one of the highest rates of child participation, particularly girls because it is a home-based industry and so girls find it easier to be employed inside of their own houses. And because it is a home-based industry, it is more difficult to regulate for the government.


Azizullah
12-year-old carpet weaver

I start at 5 in the morning and work until 6 at night.

 

Ahmad Shuja
Researcher
Human Rights Watch

Children working on the carpet looms face a lot of physical hazards. They risk having carpal tunnel syndrome, they risk diminishing vision, they risk cuts and injuries to their hands and to their eyes and they complain often of bodily ache because they sit in one straight posture for many long hours during the day.


Marina
15-year-old carpet weaver

Our eyes hurt and our hands also get injured.

 

Azizullah
12-year-old carpet weaver

My lower back hurts. It’s been seven years.

Marina
15-year-old carpet weaver

When I work too long, I inhale the dust so I get a cough.

Azizullah
12-year-old carpet weaver

When I breathe, the particles of yarn stick to my throat then I get a cough.


Ahmad Shuja
Researcher

Human Rights Watch
Children who work in brick kilns actually work in bonded conditions which means they have to work to pay off a debt that the family had incurred and often these children have absolutely no choice but to work on the brick kiln.

Rahimullah
15-year-old brickmaker

Every day we wake up with the mullah’s call to prayer. We start making bricks early in the morning and continue until evening.


Helal
10-year-old brickmaker
I don’t like making bricks. It hurts because the work is hard and the mold is heavy. We take chunks of clay from the mound and our hands hurt.

Ahmad Shuja
Researcher
Human Rights Watch

Basically in brick kilns, as soon as a child is able to walk and do things, they’re enlisted to work.

Shafiullah
Brickmaker

By the grace of God, I have 11 children. This one brings us sand. This one turns over the bricks. When they turn five, they start working. That’s when they start. The point is everyone works.

Ahmad Shuja
Researcher
Human Rights Watch

Children who work often are not able to go to school, and if they do go to school they’re forced to combine the difficult burden of labor and of education. Therefore, a lot of children are often forced to quit school because they work.

Helal
10-year-old brickmaker

There are schools but we don’t go to them. We make bricks here.

Arefa
19-year-old carpet weaver

We go to school about four or five hours. The rest of the day, we’re here. The stress from carpet weaving distracts us from our education. If you weren’t weaving carpets, what would you prefer to do?

Marina
15-year-old carpet weaver

I would continue my studies and attend courses.

Ahmad Shuja
Researcher
Human Rights Watch

Children who work have the right to safety, physical well being, the right to emotional well-being, the right to an education. The Afghan government needs to implement its laws regulating children and prohibiting them from working under difficult and harmful circumstances. The government needs to hire more labor inspectors, needs to train them and to legally empower them, to identify and then to rectify instances of children involved in harmful work. The international community needs to help the Afghan government offer technical expertise to devise regulations, policies and laws to combat child labor and to offer the financial assistance to the government to run programs of social support for childrensuch as education, healthcare, counseling and legal aid.


Ali Eftekhari
Spokesperson
Ministry of Labor
Government of Afghanistan

Unfortunately, we don’t even have the minimum budget for social support programs. This is mostly because the national budget is spent on security and less on social issues such as vulnerable children. For example, if we prohibit children from working, we must at least have an alternative plan to support them [to say] for example, “you should not be working, we will support your family, either financially or by providing them jobs.” Unfortunately, we have a problem in this area.


Ahmad Shuja
Researcher
Human Rights Watch

If the Afghan government fails to address of child labor, a quarter of Afghan children is going to grow up with basically no or very little education so these children will not be able to escape the cycle of chronic poverty during their lifetime.

Rahimullah
15-year-old brickmaker

We want to go away from the brick kiln and go somewhere else and have a decent life. For my brothers and sisters to go to school. We want to go to school and learn a new skill. There is no future in brick making. 

 

The government has failed to enforce prohibitions against child labor in hazardous industries, and has stalled in its effort to overhaul its labor law to bring it into line with international standards, Human Rights Watch said. Government institutions responsible for enforcing the law often lack the capacity to inspect workplaces, with the result that children working in prohibited jobs go unnoticed and unprotected.

In 2014, the Afghan government published a list of 19 hazardous occupations prohibited for children. These jobs include carpet weaving, metal work, and brick making. While a lack of resources is an important factor in the persistence of child labor in hazardous industries, the Afghan government has also failed to enforce its labor laws through penalties for violators and a strategy to end exploitative labor conditions.

A brick kiln manager in Kabul told Human Rights Watch: “There are children here, starting from 10 years or 8 years of age to 15 or 16… They wake up at 3 in the morning and work until about evening… They complain of pain, but what can they do? The kids are here to make a living. They bear all the pain to do all the work.”

Extreme poverty often drives Afghan children into hazardous labor. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Landlessness, illiteracy, high unemployment, and continuing armed conflict in much of the country are among the most important factors contributing to chronic poverty and, as a result, child labor.

A 13-year-old metal worker in Kabul said, “My fingers have been cut from the sharp edges of the metal and slammed by the hammer. My finger has also been caught in the trimming-beading machine. When your nail gets hit by a hammer or caught in the machine, it becomes black and eventually falls off.”

Thousands of Afghan children risk their health and safety every day to put food on the family table. The Afghan government needs to do a better job of protecting its children – and the country’s future – by enforcing the law prohibiting dangerous work for children.
Phelim Kine

Deputy Director, Asia Division


While work that is appropriate to a child’s age and under healthy and safe conditions can be beneficial to the child’s development and allow them to contribute to their family’s basic needs, work that interferes with a child’s education, or is likely to jeopardize their health or safety, is generally considered “child labor” and is prohibited under international law.

Although pilot projects extending community-based schools to reach vulnerable children have been promising, support for these schools is inadequate to the need. Eradicating child labor in Afghanistan is not feasible so long as extreme poverty continues, but the government and its donors can take steps to protect children from the risks associated with working in particularly dangerous or unhealthy conditions.

Those steps include increasing the number of labor inspectors to adequately cover the entire country; giving priority to monitoring hazardous sectors; and offering the Afghan government targeted technical assistance in devising and implementing policies, standards, and regulations against child labor. Both the government and its foreign donors should devote more resources to expanding educational support to all working children.


The government has a legal obligation under international law to take immediate action to eradicate hazardous child labor. Both Afghanistan and its foreign donors should take urgent steps to protect children from the risks associated with working in particularly dangerous or unhealthy conditions.

“When children are of legal age and work in safe conditions, they can help provide vital livelihood support for many Afghan families,” Kine said. “But the Afghan government has an obligation to enforce the laws that protect children in the workplace, and ensure that they neither have to sacrifice their education or safety as the price for supporting their families.”
 

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