Afghanistan is not protecting its children, says human rights watchdog

Children as young as five work 12-hour days in hazardous jobs.

Afghan children working at a brick-making factory outside Kabul, Afghanistan on August 20, 2015. Mohammad Ismail / Reuters

KABUL // Children as young as five in Afghanistan are working in dangerous jobs and the country is failing to protect them, say human rights watchdogs.

A report by Human Rights Watch which was published on Thursday says children are being employed in hazardous occupations or as bonded labour, even though Afghan law forbids such practices.

The 31-page report titled “They Bear All the Pain: Hazardous Child Labour in Afghanistan,” documents how child workers undertake dangerous jobs in Afghanistan’s carpet industry, as bonded labour in brick kilns, and as metal workers.

These jobs expose them to high risks of illness, injury and death and also leaves them to leave school. Only half of children involved in child labour attend school all, says the report.

“Thousands of Afghan children risk their health and safety every day to put food on the family table,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director of 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.”

In 2014, the government published a list of 19 hazardous occupations prohibited for children. But it has “failed to enforce its labour laws through penalties for violators and a strategy to end exploitative labour conditions,” says the Human Rights Watch report.

It cites numerous case studies including a 13-year-old metal worker in Kabul who told HRW: “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.”

Yet under Afghanistan’s own labour regulations state that the minimum age for employment is 18. Afghan labour law allows children between the ages of 15-17 to work if the work is not harmful to them, if it represents a form of skill training, and does not exceed 35 hours a week, according to Ahmad Shuja, HRW’s representative in Kabul. No child younger than 14 is permitted to work.

But “extreme poverty” often drives child labour in Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world afflicted by illiteracy and a staggeringly high unemployment rate of almost 40 per cent. Continued armed conflict in much of the country has not only made the country unstable, it has also depleted the number of able-bodied male adults. Families that have no wealth in the form of land may have little option but to put their children to work, where they have no protection from poor health and safety standards and exploitation.

Sher Khan, who manages a brick kiln, said, “ Yes the child workers 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.”

At least a quarter of Afghan children aged between five and 14 are in work, usually because their families need them to be. In general, they work long hours for little or no pay, doing back-breaking jobs in trades including carpet-making, brickmaking, as tinsmiths and welders in the metalworking industry, down the mines and in the fields and on the streets as vendors, shoe-shiners and beggars.

Rahimullah, 15, has worked as a brick maker since he was ten, alongside his father and 18-year-old brother. Their day begins at 4am and ends at nightfall. His younger siblings also work, he told Human rights Watch.

“As soon as they turn five, they start working. There are a lot of things to do in the brick business — clearing the ground, take the shovel, bring the pickaxe. the point is, everyone works.”

In April 2010, Afghanistan ratified both of the key international treaties related to child labour. but despite signing up to these international obligations and its own domestic legislation, child labour remains widespread in Afghanistan.

The Afghan ministry of labour, social affairs, martyrs and the disabled said the country has no budget for even minimal social support programmes. Most of the national budget goes on security.

But the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) believes that social protection of vulnerable children is low on Afghanistan’s priority list and in any case, exploitation of children as labourers would be much reduced if only the government enforced its own laws.

HRW recommended a number of steps including increasing the number of labour inspectors and prioritising the monitoring of hazardous workplaces. But a labour ministry spokesman admitted that the lack of knowledge about children’s rights was a big part of the problem.

* Agence France Presse