Poverty
forces Afghan children to quit school to work
(IRIN) - While
millions of Afghan children have returned to school following the
collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001, tens of thousands of
school-age youngsters, restricted by economic hardship, must still work
on the streets of the Afghan capital, Kabul, to sustain their families.
"I would love to go to school, but I can't. There is no one else in my
family to work except me," Zabi, a 10-year-old boy selling shopping bags
in a crowded market told IRIN.
"I was in school, but last year I failed because I was working on the
streets all day," Baryalai, a 12-year-old shoe shiner told IRIN,
explaining that, with a disabled father and two sisters and a younger
brother to feed, his priority was his family.
Such cases are not unusual. "In urban areas more children work openly on
the streets," Edward Carwardine, a spokesman for the United Nations'
Children's Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN in Kabul, noting that an estimated
40,000 children were now working on the city's streets.
Many of the children lost the breadwinners in their homes or were put
on the street to work, most of them as shoeshine boys or porters,
washing cars, burning incense, selling small items or collecting metal.
Others still resort to begging, but rarely admit it, considering such
acts shameful.
But such street children are hardly new in the war-ravaged city of some
three million. The children, both male and female, often assume the duty
or responsibility of earning income for their families after the main
breadwinners are killed or disabled.
For many children in Kabul, the families are unable to provide even the
basics. To support the family, the children have to work to earn
something for food, often under particularly dire conditions.
And while hazardous child labour had not been as commonplace as in other
countries in the region, UNICEF remained concerned that children who
have to work in some way to assist their families did not have access to
education and health care, Carwardine explained
