According to the ILO Report of 2012, the Afghan economy will likely contract because donor spending has reduced and will affect the sectors most driven by aid and reconstruction spending, including construction, thereby increasing Afghanistan`s reliance on agriculture. Already operating on razor-thin margins, many brick kiln owners will likely be forced to shut down or further cut their workers’ wages in an effort to compete in the price war in the shrinking market for bricks.

Brick kilns rely almost entirely on debt bondage, and workers and their families are tied to a kiln by the need to pay off loans taken for basic necessities, medical expenses, weddings and funerals, rather than one-time expenses such as those related to entrepreneurship. The report finds that basic subsistence needs force families to take repeated loans, often paying for food for the winter with a loan they must spend an entire season paying back.

Bonded labour arrangements keep wages low. However, the report says that given the current conditions of the brick industry, the high levels of competition and notoriously low profit margins, kiln owners cannot increase wages or improve conditions without effectively pricing themselves out of the market.

Both adult and child labourers work more than 70 hours a week, in very poor conditions. Average daily wages are between 297 and 407 Afghanis (US $6.23-8.54) for an adult and 170–278 Afghanis (US $3.57–5.82) for a child. If the brick kiln owners are forced to shut down or reduce wages, ensuring the survival of bonded labourers will be harder.

Meanwhile, kiln owners say they help families to survive. In an interview with Afghanistan Today, published in April 2012, Mohammed Akbar, a leaseholder, said he has provided the 40 families working for him with rent-free accommodation after helping many of them repatriate from Pakistan. In some cases, the kiln management assumed debts they had in that country, he added. Debts to the kiln vary from 50,000 to 370,000 Afghanis, Akbar told Afghanistan Today. “Families have to work hard to repay their debts; there is no alternative but to work.”

As per the ILO survey, 56 per cent of the brick-makers in Afghan kilns are children under the age of 18 (58 per cent boys and 42 per cent girls), and 47 per cent are 14 or younger (33 per cent boys and 14 per cent girls). Most children began working when they were between seven and eight years old, and by the age of nine, almost 80 per cent of the children are working. Only 15 per cent of the children attended school, the main reason for not doing so being the need to help their families. Consequently, they do not acquire the skills necessary to break out of bonded labour, and, with the inter-generational transference of debt, children have no choice but to follow in the footsteps of their parents.

Of the adult workers, 98 per cent were men. Unlike the brick kiln industry in other countries such as Nepal and India, in Afghanistan the industry is male-dominated and “the exclusion of women from the work force places a greater dependence on child labour,” the report says. Only young girls work alongside their brothers and fathers, and as soon as they reach puberty, they stay home. This does not mean that their work ceases; it simply shifts to family work, which is unpaid and often under-counted in child labour statistics.

A New York Times reporter visited kilns that had 150 to 200 child slaves each, working 12 hours a day, breathing in the smoke. The result is early death from pneumonia and acute respiratory infections.

Afghan Migrant Labourers in the Brick Kilns of Pakistan

Brick kilns in Pakistan are characterised by large numbers of migrant labourers. Afghan refugees have replaced some of the traditional migrant labourers. All Afghans are considered migrants (and are called Muhajirs), even when they live in nearby refugee settlements or have been born in Pakistan.

Afghans, in particular, and the new labour, in general, are willing to work for smaller advances (around Rs 3,000 or less) than the traditional migrant labourer, which they are expected to re-pay in a short time. Their greater poverty and fewer alternatives for work, especially for ‘illegal’ Afghans, are reasons for accepting smaller advances. The lowest level of rates observed in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) seems entirely due to the presence of Afghan labour. At rates of Rs 130–150 per 1,000 bricks, with the production of 600 to 1,000 bricks daily, they earn Rs 80–150 per adult worker. In the NWFP and for Afghan as a rule, daily earnings range between Rs 60 and 120. The presence of Afghan Pathan labour is widespread in NWFP. They are also found in Punjab, though less so in places close to Islamabad. These are almost always male adults and juveniles, coming to work from nearby Afghan settlements (official or informal); less often seen are Afghan families living on site in their own clusters. Now, seen as far south as lower Sindh, are Tajik and Uzbek families, who may be emerging as the new source of Afghan migrant labour.

A growing brick kiln sector in some areas of Pakistan was formerly fed by large number of Afghan Pathan labour, known as patheras. These people are now returning to Afghanistan or being pushed back by the government to areas closer to the border.

Government Action

The Government of Afghanistan initiated a social programme to eliminate or prevent the worst forms of child labour. In this programme, the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MOLSAMD) continued to implement a $24-million, four year social protection programme, from 2009 to 2013, funded by the European Commission. The programme includes components to combat child labour through US Department of Labour’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs. There is provision for vocational training, family reintegration, schooling and literacy training. Additionally, MOLSAMD, through a provincial-level youth department and a district-level youth committee, is currently implementing a UNICEF-funded project for child labourers in the brick kiln sector in Jalalabad.

The Labour Code sets the minimum age for employment, including hazardous employment, at 18. A child may work as an apprentice at 14 years. According to the Labour Code, children between ages 15 and 18 may engage in light work up to 35 hours per week. The Code prohibits the recruitment of children younger than 18 for work that is harmful to their health or that causes physical damage of disability. However, the Government of Afghanistan has not defined hazardous working conditions and occupations prohibited for children. Neither does the Labour Code prescribe penalties for child labour violations.