Child Labour grows at Afghan Kilns as girls replace women

Aljazeera report of Sept 2022 with many photos, describing sharply increasing child labour in Afghanistan’s brick kilns since the Taliban took over and most international aid stopped flowing. Children are working so that their families will not die of starvation.

As you know the Taliban regime has broken its word and banned women from most work outside the home. To compensate for this more children are working, and especially girls are doing the heavy work at the kilns that their mothers used to do.

In case anyone should think that Afghanistan is an especially backward and benighted place, take note that in the World’s largest parliamentary democracy India (which sends rockets to Mars and exports IT technicians to the West by the thousand) probably a million child labourers work at the brick kilns every year and do not attend any school. This child labour continues within 10 or 20 kilometres of the residences of chief ministers in the full light of day.

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/9/26/photos-poverty-pushes-afghan-children-to-work-at-brick-kilns

NGOs sign up for Child Labour Free Bricks - but slowly

Jan 31, 2020
1 min read

The Kolkata based Child Labour Free Bricks Campaign has appealed to NGOs and institutions to sign its PLEDGE to buy bricks only from guaranteed CHILD LABOUR FREE sources.

By the end of 2019 3 NGOs had done so, returning to the Campaign their signed pledges. They are :

Friends of Kolkata Elderly (FOKE) ; Development Research and Communications Service Centre (DRCSC) ; Calcutta Rescue.

The campaign salutes these progressive and conscientious NGOs.

Other institutions requested to sign the pledge and which have not done so include :

Loreto Provincialate, Kolkata ; Hope Foundation ; Don Bosco Park Circus ; Seva Kendra Kolkata

One of the largest building developers in Kolkata was requested to sign the pledge as one of the largest buyers of bricks. In a confidential meeting the company regretted that it has no control over the supply of materials it uses because the supply is in the hands of various middlemen and mafias. The relationship with these people cannot be disturbed.