The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MoLSA) said that it has collected more than 25,000 children who were begging from all over the country in the past one year.
The ministry’s spokesman, Samiullah Ebrahimi, said that they are trying to place these children in orphanages and provide them with educational opportunities.
"The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs will place children who are engaged in hard labor and who meet the requirements, in orphanages, where they will get all the necessities of life. The opportunity of education will also be provided for them,” Ebrahimi told TOLOnews.
As the only breadwinner for his family, 15-year-old Basit makes his living by selling chickpeas in Kabul.
"It's been three years that I work here. My father was unemployed and could not work because he was sick. I don't have an elder brother that is why I came to work myself,” Basit told TOLOnews.
"I hope that my father will be employed. I should go to madrassa and school myself and not come back to work,” Boot polisher Waisuddin, 10, Basit’s brother said.
"My father has died. I work because I don't have a father or anyone else,” Elias, another child, said.
According to some family counselors, hard labor will have negative consequences for children in the future.
"This will cause children to become violent in the future and treat both their family members and their own children with violence,” Jahan Ara Ghiasi, a family counselor, told TOLOnews.
Earlier, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said that children in Afghanistan are considered the most vulnerable children in the world, and in addition to violence and discomfort, hunger and health problems also threaten their lives.
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