May 04 2008
Brick factories and bonded labor in Afghanistan
(source: IRIN Humanitarian News and Analysis)
The Child Action Protection Network recently conducted a survey of dozens of brick-making factories in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, IRIN reported.
The 38 brick factories in the area employ 556 families. 2,298 children in these families are bonded laborers who are forced to perform the incredibly dangerous work of making bricks. Many of them suffer broken bones and severe burns from the kilns.
In Afghanistan and other countries in the region, poor families are born into bondage, inheriting “debts” from older generations that are impossible to pay off. They are not allowed to leave under threat of violence, and it is common for the entire family– including young children– to work to chip away at debts that more often accumulate than shrink.
This raises the question of how far do we stretch the line on the excuse of culture and tradition. In the past (sometimes currently), I would read about something like this and find it immoral but, at the same time, think that this is their culture but be unsure about when do we impede upon that or should we at all. Reading this reminded me of the story about children in that region who are forced to become camel jockeys. You have these entities, such as the Persian Gulf States camel racing industry, and nations that know full well what’s going on.