Скачать с ютуб Indentured Afghan workers unable to escape debt в хорошем качестве

Indentured Afghan workers unable to escape debt

(28 Oct 2016) Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a huge wealth divide. At the top are billionaires while at the very bottom are people like those toiling for endless hours at the brick kiln in the Deh Sabz district on Kabul's eastern outskirts, while living in extreme poverty. Dil Agha works at his backbreaking job there daily from before sunrise to well after sunset. Yet despite his efforts he simply digs himself deeper into debt. He knows he will never be able to pay back what he owes to the kiln owner who lent him a few thousand (US) dollars for a family emergency, and that when he dies, his children will inherit the burden that will ensure his family remains enslaved for generations. He is one of hundreds of people that the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission calls the "slaves of the 21st century." They toil as indentured labourers at brick kilns that make millions of (US) dollars a year for their owners. The law is powerless to help them and a government official says many in the government are too fearful to speak out. For the past 15 years, Afghanistan has been the recipient of billions of dollars in aid, most from the United States, to fight an insurgency and rebuild the country after decades of conflict. The country's leaders were in Brussels this month to secure pledges of another 15 billion US dollars through to 2020, and yet the economy is not growing, the war is suspended in stalemate, and corruption is rampant. For people like Dil Agha, who is 23 years old with a wife and three children, the government appears incapable of creating jobs to help them build normal lives. He is one of many workers hailing from poor villages in the eastern province of Nangarhar. The kiln boss, also from Nangarhar, lent them money after visiting the village and offering financial help to anyone who needed it. People working here say the kiln boss then offered them jobs during the warm-weather months, April to October, to repay their loans. Before they return to their villages for the winter, he lends to them once again so they can buy enough food and fuel to survive the winter months. By the time they return to the kiln for the spring, they owe the manager here, Hashmat Ali, even more money. And so the cycle continues. Ali is unmoved. "This is how it works," he said. How it works in reality is much more complex: the land on which many of Kabul's 442 brick factories operate is owned by oligarchs and former warlords who operate above the law, said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. "All brick kilns in Kabul belong to powerful people and warlords," he said. "First they give loans to very poor people and then make them work as brick-makers and use them as their slaves." Each month, the Deh Sabz district's 350 kilns produce an average of 700,000 bricks, which in a six-month season totals 4.2 million each. That's 245 million bricks from just one district of Kabul, all made by indentured labourers, some of them children as young as 4 or 5 years old. Ali said the bricks are sold to construction projects across the country, at 500 Afghanis (about 7.5 US dollars) per thousand raw or 3,200 Afghanis (about 48 US dollars) per thousand baked. This means huge profits for the landowning warlords. Dil Agha and his family are among hundreds of families who live in these unimaginably harsh conditions, a constant downward spiral of misery and debt they can never escape. For Dil Agha, the quality of the air he breathes is the least of his concerns. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...