In Afghanistan, coal mining relies on the labor of children

A boy works in a coal mine north of Kabul. Afghanistan's state-run coal industry is going strong in an otherwise shattered economy. Many underage workers are the ones who are extracting the coal. (Claire Harbage/NPR)

NAHRIN, Afghanistan — On weekdays, when most kids around the world are at school, 12-year-old Mansour is in the middle of a grueling shift at the coal mines.

Deep inside a tunnel carved into the side of a blackened mountain, the young boy waits under the flickering glow of his headlamp as older boys pry coal out of the earth by pickaxe and hand, while others shovel the piles into sacks strapped onto the backs of donkeys.