UN: Most brick kiln workers are bonded child labourers

Feb 8, 2012, 20:51 GMT

New York - More than half of workers in brick kilns in Afghanistan are bonded child labourers, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said Wednesday.

ILO said in a new survey that 56 per cent of kiln workers are found to be under 18, and 47 per cent of them are 14 or younger, who are employed to relieve debts owed by their families.

The survey said brick kilns in Afghanistan have relied mostly on bonded families, which had taken loans to pay for basic daily necessities or expenses ranging from medical services to weddings and funerals.

The survey, titled Buried in Bricks: Rapid Assessment of Bonded Labour in Afghan Brick Kilns, was conducted from August to October in Nangarhar and Kabul provinces. It found that 64 per cent of families contacted had worked in the brick industry for the past 11 years and the remaining for 35 years.

'Faced with never-ending debt, families feel they have to use all available labour, even if it is to their long-term detriment, to make daily ends meet,' the survey said. 'It is out of necessity and extreme poverty that households enlist their children from an early age to work in the kilns.'

It said both adult and child labourers work more than 70 hours a week in very harsh conditions. The average daily wage for an adult is up to 8.50 dollars and about 6 dollars for a child.

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