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A boy works in a coal mine north of Kabul. Afghanistan’s state-run coal business goes robust in an in any other case shattered financial system. Many underage employees are those who’re extracting the coal.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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Claire Harbage/NPR
A boy works in a coal mine north of Kabul. Afghanistan’s state-run coal business goes robust 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 world wide are in school, 12-year-old Mansour is in the course of a grueling shift on the coal mines.
Deep inside a tunnel carved into the aspect of a blackened mountain, the younger boy waits underneath 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 steer 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.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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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 prime greenback on the government-run mines.
They’re enviable wages in merciless financial instances.
Even in rich, developed nations with superior applied sciences, heavy equipment and available protecting gear, mining generally is a harmful and generally 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 raffle.
Miners take a break with their donkeys and drink tea close to the tip of a shift.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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Miners take a break with their donkeys and drink tea close to the tip of a shift.
Claire Harbage/NPR
A dozen employees had been killed in January, after one of many mines collapsed on account of heavy rains. Nobody, from the younger miners to mining officers and labor and humanitarian teams, appears to know or is prepared to say whether or not any of those that perished had been youngsters. However the accident was sufficient to encourage a brand new ritual among the many boys working right here.
At any time when considered one of them emerges from the tunnels, the others greet him with a tune from a toy flute the boys cross round throughout breaks — a humble celebration for making it out alive.
Prime left: Luggage of coal able to be loaded onto vans. Prime 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
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Prime left: Luggage of coal able to be loaded onto vans. Prime 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 business is a uncommon vivid 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 considered one of Afghanistan’s extra considerable commodities to international locations like Pakistan to assist resuscitate the financial system, which contracted final yr by about 20%.
Coal exports elevated by almost as a lot within the first yr underneath 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 mother and father despatched him. Impoverished households are sending their kids to work within the one business that provides jobs and a gentle wage. Kids are extra simply ready 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 mother and father despatched him. Impoverished households are sending their kids to work within the one business that provides jobs and a gentle wage. Kids are extra simply ready than grown males to squeeze into the slim mining tunnels and shafts.
Claire Harbage/NPR
The Taliban authorities additionally bought an sudden enhance earlier this yr from Russia’s conflict in Ukraine. Disruptions in fuel and provides despatched world demand for coal surging, bringing consumption to ranges not seen since a decade in the past, in line with the Worldwide Vitality Company.
This cleared the best way for the Taliban to considerably improve duties on exports in addition to the worth of coal — “from what was once $90 per ton underneath 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.
Claire Harbage/NPR
Left to proper: Mohammed Asif Faisel, 22, Amir Mohammad Sharin, 33, and Shamsurrahman Mirzada, 32, have all labored within the mines since they had 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 had been underage.
Claire Harbage/NPR
“Our doorways are open, particularly for American and European corporations,” says Burhan. “The one situation we’ve got: 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 business that may nonetheless supply jobs and a gentle wage. Kids are extra simply ready 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 situated.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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A boy guides a loaded donkey over paths on the steep mountain the place the coal mine is situated.
Claire Harbage/NPR
“Enterprise is superb, it is rising,” says Jawad Jahed, the top engineer who began managing the coal mines underneath the earlier authorities.
Aside from the rise in manufacturing, the one change he is observed for the reason that return of the Taliban is the variety of minors who’ve been despatched to work.
“Youngsters underneath 18 aren’t purported to work right here, however our persons are so poor, households don’t have 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 need to get rid of 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, although the group has a previous document of recruiting baby troopers.
A bunch sits exterior the mine after a day’s shift is over.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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A bunch sits exterior the mine after a day’s shift is over.
Claire Harbage/NPR
“They spotlight that the elimination of kid labor is essential and so they need to proceed to work on that,” says Behzad. “It is come up in all of the conversations we have had.”
However underneath 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 get rid of the worst types of baby labor.”
Whereas it is unclear what number of kids presently work in Afghanistan’s mining business, 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 very 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 unique 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 grime on the sting of the mountain the place the mine entrance is situated.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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Mansour performs within the grime on the sting of the mountain the place the mine entrance is situated.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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.
Claire Harbage/NPR
“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.
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