Afghan children paying family debts

 

About 2,200 children are believed to be working in brick factories in Sokhrod district
Al Jazeera has discovered that thousands of children, some as young as aged four, are being forced to work in brick factories in Afghanistan.

In the Sokhrod district in the east of the country, which is well known for producing bricks, there are about 38 factories and about 2,200 children are believed to be working in them.

In video

Teresa Bo reports on Afghan child workers

"I don't want to do this with my life. I want to go to school, but I cannot because I am poor," 10-year-old Shafiq Ola told Al Jazeera.

"My family is in debt for $800 and I have to work." 

Many of the children were forced into the brick factories after their parents became indebted to the owners.

"They are bonded labour, I am holding them," Mohamed Gul, the owner of one factory in the area near Jalalabad, said.

"They don't have any other option they have to, like a slave, work for me. Each family owes me thousands of aghanis [the Afghan currency]. They have to pay me with their work."

Money to survive

Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo, reporting from Sokhrod, said that many of the families working at the brick factories find it difficult to pay off their crippling debts as they earn as little as $6 a day and need the money to survive.

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