CHILD LABOUR: Five-year-old Afghan girl, Sahibah (in blue) who learned to weave carpets before she learned to read and write, helps 15-year-old Enayat (rear) and Nafisah, 9 (centre), while they weave a large wool carpet in a small compound in Char Qala district in Kabul last month. Afghan children work to earn money for their families, many of whom are refugees who fled 30 years of violence in Afghanistan to places like Pakistan but have now returned. Some of the children work in the mornings and go to school in the afternoons. A single carpet may earn a family 12,000 to 13,000 Afghanis (US$242 to US$262), paid on completion. Enayat said: “I do this just to feed my family, but I really want to be a doctor.” UNICEF said in 2007 that a quarter of Afghan children aged between seven and 14 worked, despite legal and constitutional protection. It is estimated that some 60,000 children are currently working in Kabul alone. - AFP PHOTO
Source: News Straits Times
