[JURIST] Thousands of children in Afghanistan are currently working in conditions hazardous to their health, according to a report [report] released Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website]. According to the report, many of these children work in jobs that could lead to illness, injury, or even death as a result of failure to enforce safety and health standards. Among the dangerous jobs are home-based carpentry, brick kiln labor, tinsmithing and welding, mining, and working as street vendors and shoe shiners. While acknowledging that work with proper health and safety conditions can be beneficial to children, the report notes international law is violated where work jeopardizes the health and safety of children. Current Afghan law sets the minimum age for employment at 18, but allows for children between 15-17 to work so long as the work is not harmful, requires less than 35 hours of work, and represents a form of vocational training. Afghanistan has also recently ratified the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 182 [materials] on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, and Convention No. 138 [materials] on the Minimum Age of employment, though the government has not upheld these domestic and international standards, citing “budgetary constraints and lack of capacity” as the driving forces behind the country’s inability to protect child laborers. The report consists of a variety of interviews including interviews with 15 male and female child laborers, 10 parents and employers in Bamiyan and Kabul, American and Afghan government officials, UN officials, teachers, etc. The report outlines a variety of measures for the Afghan government to take in order to better protect child laborers, including increasing the number of labor inspectors, allowing different governmental agencies to monitor and respond to child labor issues, improving child labor agencies, and making education more available by providing more flexible educational services.

In recent years child labor laws have become a growing subject of international attention. In the US, federal regulations like the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) [PDF] are the major controlling factor of child labor. In April 2015 Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported [text] that Israeli settlement farmers in the occupied West Bank are using Palestinian child laborers in dangerous conditions in violation of international laws [JURIST report]. In July 2014 the Bolivian National Congress passed legislation permitting [JURIST report] children as young as 10 to join the workforce as long as it does not interfere with one’s education and is done independently in an effort to provide for their family. In 2013 the ILO released a report on child labor advocating social protections [JURIST report] as the key to ending the practice. “[The] report contributes to a better understanding of the underlying economic and social vulnerabilities that generate child labour.”