Catherwood LibraryILR School

Fearing famine and U.S. air raids, and desperate for a source of income, many impoverished Afghan parents are sending their five-to-twelve year old sons and daughters to work as indentured servants in Pakistan's prison-like carpet and brick factories. With the price of smuggling their entire family into Pakistan far beyond the means of most Afghan parents, and no jobs available for adults in Pakistan's high unemployment labor-market, young boys and girls are forced to be the sole support for up to a dozen family members. The children---whose small fingers enable them to work as carpet weavers---are regularly underfed, tattooed with their work station numbers, and forced to work and live ten to a cell the size of a small cattle-stall under conditions that cause many to go blind and develop lung and skin diseases by the age of twelve.