KABUL (SW) – She desperately wishes to start school again and study, but the hardships of the times do not allow it, forcing her to work for a livelihood.
Her name is Zinat and she is 15 years old. She says that her disabled father has become unemployed since the rise to power of the Islamic Emirate and they have nothing to eat at home. Zinat now has to work with her younger brother to make ends meet. She and her brother spend several hours in Kabul city to find shoes for repair and polish so they can earn some money.
“I want to study, but the problems of life do not allow,” says Zinat. “Before the Islamic Emirate came, my father had a wheelbarrow, he would find us food, but now he can’t pull it. We had to go out and find food. There was no bread in the house, I do not have an older brother, no one has a job in the house, I am in the eighth grade.”
Ahmad Sami is another child who, due to his father’s joblessness, has been forced to leave school.
Sami’s mother also works daily in other people’s homes so that her children do not sleep hungry at night. Ahmad Sami says that if his father had worked, he and his mother would not have had to work on the roads or in other people’s houses and would have been better off.
However, child rights activists have expressed concerns about the growing number of working children in the country, saying that officials at the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan should pay attention to their situation.
Najib Babrakzai, a child rights activist, stressed that the authorities of the Islamic Emirate should take steps to improve the situation of working children and call on international organizations to cooperate in this regard.
“The Islamic Emirate should have had a study of the situation of children,” said Mr Babrakozi. “For example, it would be better to suggest the situation to the United Nations, whatever is in reality, to express their concerns, and to pay more attention to vulnerabilities and problems.”
Meanwhile, officials from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have announced plans to improve the living conditions of working children, and say efforts are under way in this regard.
Bilal Karimi, one of the deputy spokesmen for the Islamic Emirate, told Salam Watandar that their government was working to improve the economic situation of its citizens by providing programs to improve and provide better employment opportunities for all, so that children would not have to work.
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