A boy works in a coal mine north of Kabul. Afghanistan’s state-run coal trade goes sturdy in an in any other case shattered financial system. Many underage employees are those who’re extracting the coal.
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A boy works in a coal mine north of Kabul. Afghanistan’s state-run coal trade goes sturdy in an in any other case shattered financial system. Many underage employees are those who’re extracting the coal.
Claire Harbage/NPR
NAHRIN, Afghanistan — On weekdays, when most youngsters all over the world are in school, 12-year-old Mansour is in the midst of a grueling shift on the coal mines.
Deep inside a tunnel carved into the facet of a blackened mountain, the younger boy waits beneath the flickering glow of his headlamp as older boys pry coal out of the earth by pickaxe and hand, whereas others shovel the piles into sacks strapped onto the backs of donkeys.
From there, it’s Mansour’s job — from daybreak till nightfall — to guide the coal-laden donkeys out of a labyrinth of crumbling tunnels down the mountain on this distant a part of Baghlan province, 180 miles north of Kabul. Right here, the so-called black gold is bagged and loaded onto vans, largely certain for neighboring international locations.
“My household despatched me to work right here final yr,” he says. He is sporting no protecting gear — no masks, no goggles, only a pair of low cost rubber footwear he is sliced open to let his toes breathe, with toes blackened by coal mud peeking out. “What they pay me goes on to my household.”
Boys earn between $3 and $8 for a day’s work within the coal mines.
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Boys earn between $3 and $8 for a day’s work within the coal mines.
Claire Harbage/NPR
The boys earn between $3 and $8 for a day’s work, relying on how strenuous their assigned duties are. Digging for coal, lining the brittle tunnel partitions with rickety wooden frames, loading the vans all earn high greenback on the government-run mines.
They’re enviable wages in merciless financial occasions.
Even in rich, developed nations with superior applied sciences, heavy equipment and available protecting gear, mining could be a harmful and typically lethal job. In Afghanistan, the place a lot of the coal is mined by hand, each descent into the bowels of this mountain is a bet.
Miners take a break with their donkeys and drink tea close to the top of a shift.
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Miners take a break with their donkeys and drink tea close to the top of a shift.
Claire Harbage/NPR
A dozen employees have been killed in January, after one of many mines collapsed as a result of heavy rains. Nobody, from the younger miners to mining officers and labor and humanitarian teams, appears to know or is keen to say whether or not any of those that perished have been children. However the accident was sufficient to encourage a brand new ritual among the many boys working right here.
At any time when one among them emerges from the tunnels, the others greet him with a tune from a toy flute the boys move round throughout breaks — a humble celebration for making it out alive.
High left: Luggage of coal able to be loaded onto vans. High proper: A boy places a guiding hand on the neck of a coal-laden donkey. Backside: A person runs, urging donkeys to quicken their tempo up the hill to a mine entrance.
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High left: Luggage of coal able to be loaded onto vans. High proper: A boy places a guiding hand on the neck of a coal-laden donkey. Backside: A person runs, urging donkeys to quicken their tempo up the hill to a mine entrance.
Claire Harbage/NPR
Coal manufacturing is rising — and so is the variety of baby miners
Afghanistan’s state-run coal trade is a uncommon brilliant spot in an in any other case shattered financial system.
When the Taliban returned to energy final yr, donor governments and worldwide establishments withdrew billions of {dollars} in help, triggering an financial and humanitarian disaster. Months of isolation prompted the cash-strapped Taliban authorities to ramp up manufacturing and export of one among Afghanistan’s extra ample commodities to international locations like Pakistan to assist resuscitate the financial system, which contracted final yr by about 20%.
Coal exports elevated by practically as a lot within the first yr beneath Taliban rule, in line with the Ministry of Finance. Roughly 10,000 tons of coal are exported day by day, in line with the Ministry of Mining and Petroleum.
Left: Abdul Salaam, 17, has been working on the mine since he was 9 years previous. Proper: Mansour, 12, started working on the mine final yr, after his dad and mom despatched him. Impoverished households are sending their kids to work within the one trade that gives jobs and a gradual wage. Youngsters are extra simply in a position than grown males to squeeze into the slim mining tunnels and shafts.
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Left: Abdul Salaam, 17, has been working on the mine since he was 9 years previous. Proper: Mansour, 12, started working on the mine final yr, after his dad and mom despatched him. Impoverished households are sending their kids to work within the one trade that gives jobs and a gradual wage. Youngsters are extra simply in a position than grown males to squeeze into the slim mining tunnels and shafts.
Claire Harbage/NPR
The Taliban authorities additionally acquired an sudden enhance earlier this yr from Russia’s struggle in Ukraine. Disruptions in gasoline and provides despatched international demand for coal surging, bringing consumption to ranges not seen since a decade in the past, in line with the Worldwide Power Company.
This cleared the best way for the Taliban to considerably enhance duties on exports in addition to the worth of coal — “from what was $90 per ton beneath the earlier authorities to $200 now,” says Esmatullah Burhan, spokesman for the Ministry of Mining and Petroleum.
Not solely does the federal government have plans to construct new roads for higher entry to China’s markets, it is also desperate to welcome overseas funding within the mining sector — for coal and particularly uncommon minerals and metals, together with lithium.
A boy unloads a bag from the again of a donkey after popping out of a mine.
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A boy unloads a bag from the again of a donkey after popping out of a mine.
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Left to proper: Mohammed Asif Faisel, 22, Amir Mohammad Sharin, 33, and Shamsurrahman Mirzada, 32, have all labored within the mines since they have been underage.
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Left to proper: Mohammed Asif Faisel, 22, Amir Mohammad Sharin, 33, and Shamsurrahman Mirzada, 32, have all labored within the mines since they have been underage.
Claire Harbage/NPR
“Our doorways are open, particularly for American and European firms,” says Burhan. “The one situation we now have: If a overseas firm comes right here, they will need to have an Afghan partnership.”
The funding has been gradual to materialize. However with greater than 90% of Afghans missing sufficient to eat, many impoverished households are seizing the chance to ship their kids to work within the one trade that may nonetheless supply jobs and a gradual wage. Youngsters are extra simply in a position than grown males to squeeze into the slim mining tunnels and shafts.
A boy guides a loaded donkey over paths on the steep mountain the place the coal mine is positioned.
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A boy guides a loaded donkey over paths on the steep mountain the place the coal mine is positioned.
Claire Harbage/NPR
“Enterprise is superb, it is rising,” says Jawad Jahed, the top engineer who began managing the coal mines beneath the earlier authorities.
Apart from the rise in manufacturing, the one change he is seen for the reason that return of the Taliban is the variety of minors who’ve been despatched to work.
“Youngsters beneath 18 aren’t alleged to work right here, however our persons are so poor, households haven’t any alternative,” he says. “They ship their kids to work as a result of they want the cash and it is laborious for us to show them away.”
The Taliban say they wish to remove baby labor, however it’s risen since they returned to energy
In Kabul, an previous banner from the earlier authorities declaring a mission to finish baby labor nonetheless hangs within the entrance of the Ministry of Labor.
Ramin Behzad, the Worldwide Labor Group’s Kabul-based senior coordinator for Afghanistan, says it is a mission the Taliban authorities has inherited and now helps, though the group has a previous document of recruiting baby troopers.
A bunch sits outdoors the mine after a day’s shift is over.
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A bunch sits outdoors the mine after a day’s shift is over.
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“They spotlight that the elimination of kid labor is essential and so they wish to proceed to work on that,” says Behzad. “It is come up in all of the conversations we have had.”
However beneath each the present and former authorities, motion and enforcement have lagged. A U.S. Labor Division report revealed in 2021 discovered that “Afghanistan made no development in efforts to remove the worst types of baby labor.”
Whereas it is unclear what number of kids at the moment work in Afghanistan’s mining trade, what is thought is that baby labor total has grown considerably within the final yr. A survey of greater than 10,000 households by a coalition of assist organizations discovered that the variety of Afghan households with male heads of family reporting at the least one baby working jumped from 13% in 2021 to 21% in 2022. For households with feminine heads of family, these figures elevated from 19% in 2021 to 29% in 2022.
Some kids have ended up on the coal mines, working across the clock with no safety or promise for a distinct life forward.
A number of of the older boys on the Baghlan mine say they’ve come to phrases with no matter destiny awaits them.
Mansour performs within the filth on the sting of the mountain the place the mine entrance is positioned.
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Mansour performs within the filth on the sting of the mountain the place the mine entrance is positioned.
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Donkeys dot the mountains close to the entrances to the coal mine.
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Donkeys dot the mountains close to the entrances to the coal mine.
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“It’s the work of future,” says 17-year-old Abdul Salaam. He is been working right here since he was 9. “Whether it is my future to die in these mines, then so be it.”
However that future has already began taking form.
On the finish of a 10-hour work day, a couple of younger miners sit on a ledge overlooking this huge, blackened panorama. One in every of them pulls out the flute.
He performs a mellifluous trill for a couple of seconds, then stops.
Boys sit on the mountain after a 10-hour work day and play the flute.
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Boys sit on the mountain after a 10-hour work day and play the flute.
Claire Harbage/NPR
“Stick with it!” the opposite boys urge him, however he cannot.
He would not have the breath to go on.
