A Bitter Day Beside the Girl Who Sells Gum

The darkness of the Taliban’s cruel restrictions has cast a black, heavy shadow over little Mahtab’s life.

She is one of 160 million child laborers in the world, running from dawn to dusk in one of Afghanistan’s major cities, straining her voice to sell five-Afghani gum in order to afford the medicine that cost thousand Afghani for her suffering mother.

The clock shows 7:10 in the morning, and I find Mahtabi in a corner of Herat city, hidden deep in sorrow and grief. A sorrow that bends the strong shoulders of adults and weakens the sturdy arms of the youth.

The pain of not having money for her mother’s treatment, who lies ill at home, on one side, and the lack of a breadwinner, being an orphan, the empty table, and the sorrow of her two little sisters' hungry stomachs on the other, all weigh heavily on this child laborer's small shoulders.

Mahtab, a 13-year-old girl lost from morning until evening in the dust and smoke of Herat’s traffic, says she wakes up early in the hope of selling more gum, but she skips breakfast so she can arrive at the Maref Square of Herat city earlier than other working children. "I try to get here earlier than all the other boys and girls. Some people buy gum from me and don’t take their change. Some days, I don’t even earn fifty Afghanis. My mother is sick, I work so I can take her to the doctor."

I try to move closer to her so I can hear the voice buried in her choking sorrow more clearly, but in this square, the noise of vehicles, which seem to outnumber the passengers, drowns out Mahtab’s trembling, childlike voice.

Wearing a wrinkled white headscarf and a black coat, clothing that carries a bundle of memories for millions of girls in Afghanistan, she waves her hand and calls out, trying to draw the attention of passengers and drivers toward herself.

All of Mahtab’s effort is to earn between 50 to 100 Afghanis by selling a pack of gum, so she can give the money to her mother to either buy medicine or spend it on food for the family. "I don’t sell gum here for myself. We have no one to work. My father passed away, and my mother is sick. Sometimes at night when I go home, my mother takes the money I’ve earned to either buy bread or medicine for herself."

Her dust-covered face and cracked hands tell the story of Mahtab’s difficult life. She says that in the past, her mother used to support their family of four by working in people’s homes. But now, as the oldest member of the family, she has been forced to carry that heavy burden herself. "My mother used to go to people’s houses and wash their clothes, clean their homes, and sometimes do tailoring. But now she is sick. The doctors have said she needs surgery. Right now, my mother has no money to get treatment."

Slowly, the sunlight begins to shine more brightly on the streets of Herat and on Mahtab’s body, and the number of children who share her fate at Maref Square in Herat increases. Other young boys and girls also come to this place to work in their own ways and take home a few Afghanis by evening.

These working children sometimes argue and get into fights, and sometimes they are friends and smile at each other. But Mahtab stays mostly focused on selling her gum. She is less concerned about the future and more absorbed in the worries of today. She is thinking about how to make it through this day and return home with something in hand.

A home where a sick mother and two little sisters wait for food and bread. "If I don’t work, how will we find bread tonight? Sometimes my little sisters cry and say we don’t have anything to eat. I have to sell a lot of gum, because if my mother doesn’t take her medicine, she can’t sleep at night. She just sits and cries."

With each passing moment, as the warm sunlight shines brighter, the air in Herat grows hotter. Yet the exhaustion and hopelessness on Mahtab’s face become even more visible. It is twelve noon, and no sound comes from Mahtab’s throat. She has been shouting for hours through the dust of Herat’s main road to sell just a few more pieces of gum.

With her hoarse voice, she tries to make people understand that she needs the money from selling these gums. But her cries, mixed with the roar of cars and traffic noise, do not reach the ears of many passersby.

Mahtab, with a voice full of pain and sorrow, says, "Today again I made no money. Only a few people hear my voice. No one listens to me. I just wish that today I could sell one pack of gum by the evening."

Mahtab also dreams of going to school, building her future, playing like other children, and enjoying life. But she says that even thinking about these things would keep her from being able to provide dinner for her family. "I also want to play like others, jump rope, go to school so one day I can help my people. But if I start thinking about those things now, then tonight we will all have to go to sleep hungry."

Mahtab says her father served as a soldier in the Afghan National Army during the Republic. But in the early days of the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Taliban, he was killed by a landmine in Zawal district of Herat province.

"My father was in the army. It was around sunset when our phone rang. My mother answered, then she started crying and said, 'Mahtabak, you have become orphan.'"

Mahtab is not the only one who has become the breadwinner of her family due to the absence of a guardian. More than seven thousand children in Herat province are experiencing the same fate as Mahtab, or even worse.