So instead the children help their father, working from 9am to 5pm, sleeping in flat-roofed, windowless huts with doors hanging off hinges as the only protection against the cold Afghan nights.
The children can make between 80 Afghanis and 100 Afghanis (US$1.6 to US$2) per day. The money goes to their father.
Adults on the site earn up to 320 Afghanis for every 1,000 bricks they make.
All but Chaman’s youngest son are barefoot. The boys have sandfly marks on their sunburned faces, while Anam has streaks of red in his black hair — a sign of malnutrition.
“I had a very nice school,” Anam said about lessons in Pakistan. “Everything was there. We were provided with notebooks and books.”
“The work here is very hard and it is hard on my hands. The boxes are very heavy,” he said.
Chaman said the situation is not ideal but he has no choice.
“Who wants their children to work in a place like this?” he said.
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