By Nargis Amini
On a chilly morning, when snow-covered Bamiyan city, I met a shivering 8-year-old girl who was getting ready for her day’s work.
She quickly stood up when I approached her. Her teeth were chattering in the cold as she told me her name: Laiqa.
She held a matchbox and an empty can in her charcoal-black hands, whispering that she hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning.
But, she is not alone. Atefa, her 10-year-old sister, is also working. She, too, has a can and some coals, which are the tools they use to earn a living on the streets of Bamyan.
Laiqa and her sister are part of a large group of children forced to work on the streets since August 2021 to bring food for their families.
The worst drought in 30 years, unemployment, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the economic sanctions imposed after the Taliban took over in August have had catastrophic consequences on people’s livelihood. In December, a survey by the United Nations’ World Food Programme showed “an estimated 98% of Afghans are not eating enough.”
Before the Taliban took over, Laiqa’s 65-year-old father was able to find daily wage work in Bamyan city, which was enough to feed the family of six.
With food becoming more scarce and her father unable to find work, the two sisters are burning Esfand on the streets to ward off the family’s starvation.
The sisters carry small pieces of burning coals inside a tin can and throw a few seeds of Esfand (Peganum Harmala) on the coals whenever a customer allows it. Their work plays on the superstition that the sharp fragrance of the burning Esfand, a noxious plant, would ward off evil eyes and make the space auspicious.
They buy the coal from a restaurant every morning and then light it up inside their metal containers, which lasts for several hours. They walk around and ask shopkeepers to burn Esfand and smoke up their shops. On a good day, she makes about 100 Afghani (less than a dollar).
In Bamyan city alone, about 60 children are burning Esfand. They are divided into three hierarchical groups. The stronger group controls the centre of the town, where there are more shops and more chances of earning.
The smaller kids like Laiqa and her sister are pushed to the outer layers of town with fewer shops.
“Those who are stronger and older can earn more,” said Laiqa. “If we go to the areas of older children, they would beat us and take our money,” she added.
Sikandar Omari, a Taliban official at the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MoLSAMD) in Bamyan, said that the number of child labourers has increased in the past few months. He said the United Nations Children’s Fund plans to support 600 child labourers in Bamyan.
Unlike Laiqa and her sister, who became child labourers after the Taliban took over, Mahdi and Mohammad, two brothers, 10 and 8-year-olds, have been burning Esfand for years. “I have been doing this for five years now, as my younger brother and I are the breadwinners of our family,” Mahdi said.
“Before the Taliban takeover, I could earn 200 Afghani (two dollars) a day, but now the situation has changed, and someday I earn nothing,” he added.
In mid-December, Save the Children said that the number of children “not getting enough to eat has increased by 3.3 million in the four months since the previous government of Afghanistan fell in August.”
