The international Labor Day, today, is being marked in Afghanistan and across the world. As for the millions of workers around the world, this day has a special message for Afghan workers too – fight for your right. But awareness is so low that majority of the poor Afghan workers do not have even a little bit of know-how about their day.

Poverty has grabbed them in such a way that they have no time to raise their voice on this specified day against the deprivations they face. At least over the last 12 years – a period considered golden for Afghanistan as it has received billions of dollars in aid from the international community – the workers have availed no benefit while poverty has extended further to sophisticate their living. The Afghan government has turned a blind eye over the workers’ plight causing their hopes to die. The troubles the Afghan workers are facing are grave and multiple. Poverty serves as their biggest problem.   

A staggering 70 percent of Afghans survive on less than two dollars per day. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries of the world where according to estimates more than 10 million people suffer absolute poverty. The condition is so despite the injection of billions of dollars of international aid into the economy of Afghanistan since the fall of Taliban in 2001.

Corruption is perceived an important factor that has contributed to poverty. The benefits of huge amounts of international have not reached to common Afghans as those with more political power have concentrated on gaining much profit from the prevailing chaotic situation in which the government is so weak that it cannot say a word against the worsening problem given birth by corruption. Embezzlements, nepotism, lack of transparency and accountability and failure of international community to oversight how its funds are spent in Afghanistan can be deemed major reasons for why the common Afghans have benefited the little.

The word ‘worker’ does not apply merely to adults as the number of child laborers is also quite high in this country. In Afghanistan around 21 percent of child workers are employed in shops; 13 percent work as street vendors. Others work in vehicle repair, metal workshops, tailoring and farming. In Kabul and many other major cities of Afghanistan, there street children who shine shoes, beg, clean cars and collect and sell scrap metal, paper and firewood.

The condition of Afghan workers can only change for better, if there is a true willingness in government to support them, help them to become skillful and make proper uses of them in agricultural, industrial and mining sectors. Currently, the neighboring countries are obtaining more benefit from Afghan labors - who work at low wages - than Afghanistan itself.