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"Poor Afghan Families Force Kids to Work to Earn Food"
"Across the Kingdom, solemn looking and shabbily dressed Afghan children often sell gum to diners and shoppers leaving restaurants and supermarkets. While many people harbor ill thoughts about the parents who send their children to work on the streets, very few understand the poverty that forces these parents to do so.
"Afghanistan has seen conflict for decades, leading to thousands of Afghan refugees coming to Saudi Arabia. Although many Afghans here are legal, others reside illegally. [...]
"Mariam Muhammad, an Afghan woman, had come to live in Makkah with the help of smugglers two years ago. She traveled from her native Afghanistan via Pakistan and Yemen to join her husband who had come here four years before her.
'' 'My husband pays SR5,000 [more or less 1,335 dollars] a year to rent a squalid two-room flat, which we share with his first wife, his parents, two sisters and all of our children. There are a total of 22 people living here,' she said.
"Mariam said Afghans generally have large families and that her husband’s children — from her and his first wife — range between four months and 28 years. [...]
" 'The women make handmade products at home, such as woolen gloves, socks, men’s trousers, caps, scarves and veils. We also make prayer beads, bracelets and necklaces, and snacks such as mantu, farmoza, sambosak and cakes,” she said.
"Afghans generally depend on their kids to sell the items they make. [...]"
Source: Arab News (Saudi Arabia), May 23, 2008
Posted at: 2008-06-11
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