Nabila works 10 hours or more a day, doing the heavy, dirty work of packing mud into molds and transporting wheelbarrows full of bricks.
At 12 years old, she has been working in brick factories for half her life, and is probably the oldest of all her co-workers.
Already high, the number of children put to work in Afghanistan is growing, fueled by the collapse of the economy after the Taliban took over the country and the world cut off financial aid just over a year.
Conditions in brick factories are harsh for adults, let alone children. (AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)
A recent Save the Children survey estimates that half of Afghanistan’s families have put children to work to put food on the table as livelihoods collapse.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the many brick factories on the highway north of the capital, Kabul. Conditions in the ovens are harsh even for adults.
But in almost all of them, children as young as four or five work alongside their families from dawn to dusk in the heat of summer.
Children work carrying dry bricks for firing. (AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)
Children do each step of the brick making process. They load water drums, carry the wooden brick molds filled with mud to put them in the sun to dry.
They load and push carts full of dry bricks to the kiln for firing, and then push carts full of fired bricks back. Everywhere they are lifting, stacking, sorting bricks.
They carve the burning coal that has been burned in the kiln to find pieces that can still be used, inhaling the soot and burning their fingers.
The children work with a determination and a serious sense of responsibility beyond their years, born of knowing little more than the need of their families. When asked about toys or games, they smile and shrug. Only a few have gone to school.
Nabila, 12 years old, has been working in brick factories since she was five or six years old.
Like many other brick workers, his family works part of the year in a kiln near Kabul, the other part in one outside Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan.
The work takes its toll on young children, like this four-year-old girl. (AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)
A few years ago, he went to school in Jalalabad for a while. He would like to go back to school, but he can’t – his family needs his work to survive, he said with a soft smile.
“We can’t think about anything but work,” he said.
Mohabbat, a nine-year-old boy, paused for a moment with an expression of pain as he carried a load of coal.
“My back hurts,” he said.
Children, like this eight-year-old boy, work to support their families. (AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)
When asked what he wished for, he first asked, “What is a wish?”
After explaining, he was silent for a moment, thinking.
“I’d like to go to school and eat great food,” she said, then added, “I’d like to work well so we can have a house.”
The landscape around the factories is bleak and barren, with furnace chimneys spewing black smoke and soot.
Parents were forced to put their children to work as the economy worsened. (AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)
Families live in dilapidated mud houses next to the kilns, each with a corner where they make their bricks. For most, a day’s meal is bread soaked in tea.
Rahim has three sons who work with him in a brick kiln, aged between five and twelve.
The children had gone to school and Rahim, who goes by one name, said he had long resisted putting them to work.
The children have been working for their survival since the Taliban regained control of the country. (AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)
But even before the Taliban came to power, as the war dragged on and the economy worsened, he said he had no choice.
“There is no other way,” he said.
“How can they study when we have no bread to eat? Survival is more important.”
Workers are paid the equivalent of US$4 (6.13) for every 1,000 bricks they make.
An adult working alone cannot make that amount in a day, but if children help, they can make 1,500 bricks a day, the workers said.
According to Save the Children surveys, the percentage of families who say they have a child working outside the home grew from 18% to 22% from December to June.
This would indicate that there were over 1 million child laborers across the country.
Another 22 percent of children said they were asked to work in the family business or on the farm.
The surveys covered more than 1,400 children and more than 1,400 caregivers in seven provinces.
They also pointed to the rapid collapse of Afghans’ livelihoods.
In June, 77% of families surveyed reported losing half their income or more compared to a year ago, up from 61% in December.
Not even the rain brings relief to the children. (AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)
On a recent day at one of the kilns a light rain began, and at first the children were cheerful, thinking it would be a refreshing rain in the heat.
Then the wind picked up. A blast of dust hit them, covering their faces. The air turned yellow with dust. Some of the children could not open their eyes, but they continued to work. The rain opened in a downpour.
Children work in dust and rain. (AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)
The kids were soaked. One boy had water and mud pouring from him, but like the others he said he couldn’t take shelter without finishing his work. Streams of torrential rain cut trenches in the dirt around them.
“We’re used to it,” he said.
He then said to another boy, “Hurry up, let’s finish it.”
AP