Shattered dreams: Robbed of childhood, young Afghans face bleak future

Child labour in Afghan refugee camps a daily reality.

HARIPUR: Child labour in Afghan refugee camps is a daily reality. The need to work to contribute to family income is depriving the young generation of not only the chance to acquire education but also of their childhood. And since there is no suitable work around for tiny hands, the easiest is rag picking from garbage dumps which exposes the young ones to a host of diseases.

Noor Muhammad, has been scavenging since he was five. He went to school for a few months but the need to feed a family of 11 members soon found him collecting commercial rubbish from the city’s filth dumps. He is an inmate of an Afghan refugee camp in Haripur, a district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Now only skin and bones Noor Muhammad has worked in different sorts of professions including the most common profession of scavenging the city’s filth dumps. This is his destiny because he cannot get an education. He may probably die young of some disease he would get from sorting garbage because he is already malnourished and his immune system will not sustain him for long. Fortunately for him he doesn’t realize his childhood has already been lost.

Shah Waliullah, the head of Afghan refugee school and college in camp 5, of the township in Haripur, said, “95 per cent of our school and college students have been working in hazardous conditions after their school time.” He added that the students have to pay their school and college fees and also support their families. Many of them leave soon after enrollment in the schools on account of financial problems. Similarly many could not sustain their school attendance due to their jobs.

He also said that there is not a single desk or chair for the students in many classrooms, even the mud walls have been damage by monsoon floods. During school hours student have to be engaged in the renovation of the school buildings, which adversely affects their education. Poverty pushes many children into crime and narcotics addiction. Every day many students remain absent from school and can usually be found involved in drugs and crime.

Abdul Haleem Khan, primary section in-charge, said that he often found Afghan students outside the school engaged in child labour, street crimes and drug addiction. Their parents either do not have any control or due to lack of resources had to take out their children from the school.

He added that along with child labour, they face problems due to low salaries, stating, “We are usually paid from Rs3,500 to 6,000.” He complained that NGOs established to help Afghan refugees did nothing of worth. They received huge funds from donor agencies, but did not provide any facility to students, who are deprived of educational and recreational facilities. He called on the government to take immediate steps to end child labor in the camps, and provide schools and colleges for their children.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2010.