86
heat or humidity. Meanwhile, 43 percent of boys and 38 percent of girls who have undertaken child labour have been injured or have fallen ill as a result of the work he or she had been doing.
Figure 5.28:
Child labourers’ exposure to hazardous conditions, by sex in percentages
a
Numbers in parentheses denote the proportion of girls and boys accounting for the total population of children between 5 and 17 years of age in child labour.
5.5.3 Causes and consequences of child labour
In many societies, it is primarily poverty that drives children to engage in market work. The analysis of poverty in Afghanistan presented in chapter 7 of this report also suggests that a higher incidence of
poverty is correlated with the presence in the household of child labourers. For example, the poverty rate is much higher in households with at least one child engaged in child labour 48 percent compared
to those without child labour 39 percent. The poverty rate was also found to increase progressively for households with more children engaged in child labour.
Of course, child labour is often both a cause and consequence of poverty. In poor households, children are driven to work in order to supplement household income. At the same time, engaging in labour
retards a child’s capabilities by preventing the acquisition of cognitive and technical skills and, when carried out under hazardous conditions, by retarding his or her physical capabilities and health. The
consequent lack of basic skills prevents such children from acquiring more advanced levels of skills, with catastrophic effects on their future income-earning capacity. Such individuals are almost invariably
condemned to working in similar conditions for the rest of their lives, as they never acquire the skills and physical capabilities that would enable them to get out of poverty through better-paying jobs in less
harmful environments.
Figure 5.29
shows that while 37 percent of non-working boys between the ages of 5 and 17 years did not attend school, 46 percent of those engaged in child labour did not. The
equivalent figures for girls suggest an even stronger negative effect of child labour on school attendance, with 57 and 66 percent of girls in the respective age cohorts not attending school.
61 62
17 31
6 39
43 53
56 11
21 4
30 38
10 20
30 40
50 60
70 Exposed to dust, fumes or gas
Exposed to extreme cold, heat or humidity Exposed to loud noise or vibration
Working at heights Working with explosives or chemicals
Exposed to other health or safety threats Injured or ill because of the work
Percentage Boys 65
Girls 35
87
Figure 5.29: Children aged 6 to 17 attending school, by sex, and by activity status in percentages
It is to be noted that non-attendance is higher among girls than among boys regardless of activity status: 217 thousand girls between 6 and 17 years of age did not go to school while 143 thousand boys of the
same age did not attend. But the main reason why girls did not attend was that their families did not allow them to go to school. For example, 37 percent of all girls not attending school cited this as the
main reason; 13 percent cited security concerns as the main reason, nine percent declared that they did not like to go to school and eight percent respectively said that they did not go to school because there
was no school or that the nearest available school was too far, or that there was no female teacher. Only 5 percent did not attend school because they needed to work. In contrast, 40 percent of boys who did
not attend school cited the need to work as the main reason, while 15 percent said that they did not attend school because they did not like to.
When controlled for other factors, it is quite likely that child labour will be found to be a significant constraint to school attendance. In an analysis using NRVA 2007-08 data, Aturupane et al. 2013 found
that characteristics related to age, disability, child labour, whether the mother or father makes decisions about children’s education, the level of economic prosperity in the community and spatial characteristics
were significantly associated with the probability of school enrolment. Of these variables, however, the level of economic prosperity in the community as measured by the proportion of bad jobs emerged as
the single most important factor. This finding suggests that the health of the local labour market is a key determinant of whether parents decide to send their children to work or to school.
In some communities, however, a traditional lifestyle propels children into the workplace. For example, the analysis of activity status of children aged 5 to 17 by residence in
Figure 5.30
suggests that the
nomadic lifestyle of the Kuchi, which is based on tending livestock, requires children to undertake many tasks associated with child labour. As a result, the Kuchi have the highest rates of child labour among
both girls and boys. Nevertheless, the rural sector as a whole accounts for the largest proportion of all Afghan children in child labour.
63 43
71
37 56
34
10 20
30 40
50 60
70 80
Boys Girls
P er
ce n
tag e
Not working Working child
Child labour
88
Figure 5.30: Children aged 5 to 17, by sex, residence, and by activity status in percentages
a
a. Boys b. Girls
a
Numbers in parentheses denote the proportion of children in each category from the population of children between 5 and 17 years of age in Afghanistan.
5.5.4 Household chores and child labour
