KABUL - Reports indicate that in Afghanistan at least 1.9 million children work to help support their families.
Tuesday, June 12, is World Day Against Child Labor – a day marked globally - as the International Labor Organization (ILO) works to eradicate the problem.
However, reports indicate that at least 1.9 million children work in Afghanistan.
Officials from Save the Children Organization and the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MoLSAMD) said on Tuesday the plight of children in Afghanistan is worrying.
“War and poverty have caused lots of children to work on the streets and also a large number of them do difficult work,” Mariam Attaie, spokeswoman for Save the Children said.
“This figure is very high and we are worried. We will try to work in this regard to make good achievements,” Abdul Fatah Ishrat Ahmadzai, MoLSAMD’s spokesman said.
In this report, TOLOnews journalist Nabilla Ashrafi has profiled a family who have 17 children of whom eight work on the streets in Kabul from morning to night – all deprived of an education.
Seven-year-old Salma, one of the children in the family, collects empty bottles. 
“Our parents tell us to work on the streets. We have to work,” said Salma.
Salma’s older sister, Zainab, 9, sells plastic bags. She said her family wants them all to work.
“I sell plastic and my brothers gather bottles and sometimes we beg for money from people,” said Zainab.
Salma, along with some of her other siblings, collects bottles, which are then sold on by their father, Gul Khan.
“If these children do not work, then what must I do and what should I eat,” said Gul Khan.
Gul Khan has two wives and 17 children and they all live in a house which they rent for 6,000 AFs per month.
“We have a lot of children and can afford to feed them all because we are poor and their father is suffering of an illness,” Qamar, the children’s mother said.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) launched the World Day Against Child Labor in 2002 to focus attention on the global extent of child labor and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it.
Each year on June 12, the World Day brings together governments, employers and workers organizations, civil society, as well as millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child laborers and what can be done to help them.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by world leaders in 2015, include a renewed global commitment to ending child labor. The Sustainable Development Goals calls on the global community to: "Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labor in all its forms."  (Tolo news)