In Pictures

Gallery|Poverty and Development

Iraqi children scavenge for a living

After fleeing from ISIL, dozens of young Iraqis spend their days searching through rubbish heaps for valuable scraps.

Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
'My parents told me that terrorists came, so we fled,' explained a young scavenger from Mosul. Like dozens of other children, he now works at the Kani Qirzhala dump site, 15km outside of Erbil. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
By Sebastian Castelier and Wilson Fache
Published On 29 Mar 2016

Standing next to a pile of rubbish as high as a hill, Ali, a 12-year-old child from Mosul, looks excitedly at his latest discovery.

“They say it’s expired, but I am still eating it,” he says, popping a strawberry candy into his mouth.

Like Ali, dozens of displaced Iraqi children who fled from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group are now working in a massive landfill site 15km outside Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. They scavenge their way through tonnes of rubbish to collect plastic and metal to sell to recycling plants, making between 10,000 and 30,000 Iraqi dinars ($9 to $27) a day.

“This is not an appropriate place for children, but they are forced to do it,” landfill supervisor Ali Hessah told Al Jazeera, saying that he leaves the gates of his rubbish tip open so that displaced children and their parents can work.

“This is not a life, but we have no choice,” said Ahmed, 16, who fled Mosul a year and a half ago. No longer in school, Ahmed and his 12-year-old brother are now among the children who scavenge for a living.

Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
Iraq's Kurdish region is home to two million internally displaced people who fled from ISIL. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
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Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
Ahmed, 16, fled Mosul with his parents and his 12-year-old brother the day before ISIL overran their city. He works at the landfill nearly every day, from 8am to 2 or 3pm. 'When they take back Mosul, I will be the first to go,' he said, adding he wants to become a doctor. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
Many displaced Iraqis arrived in 2014, when ISIL seized large swaths of territory in northern Iraq, including Mosul and Sinjar. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
A month ago, Hussein Hamid's two sons, Ali, 13, and Taha, 12, joined him to work in the landfill. 'Because of our situation, I had to take them out of school so they could help,' he said. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Iraqi children end up working in a landfill/ Please Do Not Use
For a large proportion of internally displaced children who are not living in camps, access to education is limited because of school-related costs, as well as a lack of Arabic-language instruction. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
The Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG] requires children to attend school for nine years, typically up to age 15. But under Iraq's education law, children are required to attend school for six years, typically up to age 12. This double standard makes children aged 12 to 15 particularly vulnerable to exploitative child labour practices inside Iraq's Kurdish region, as they are not required to be in school but are not legally permitted to work either. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
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Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
According to the UN children's fund, UNICEF, law enforcement agencies in Iraq have taken action to combat child labour in all forms, but the KRG does not enforce some of the central government's laws. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
Along with plastic, Shalan, a 12-year-old from Anbar province, sometimes collects food. 'If it's still closed, it's still good,' he said, holding a loaf of bread wrapped in a plastic bag. Cheese was the best food he ever found, he added. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
Ahmed, 16, from Mosul, says competition can sometimes be high between the young workers, noting that one of them 'kicks us and steals our plastic'. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
'This is not a place for kids, but what can we do?' asks Delal, a Yazidi woman from Sinjar, whose young nephews and nieces all work in the landfill. Four of her family members were taken by ISIL. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
'There weren't a lot of people before, but after the war, a lot more arrived,' said Ali Hessah, the landfill supervisor. 'They are not supposed to come here, but we let them because of their situation.' He says he has seen rag-pickers as young as four or five years old. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
At the end of the day, the scavengers sell what they find to a recycling factory. One factory near the landfill buys plastic for 100,000 Iraqi dinars ($90) a tonne. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
Naswan, the director of a local recycling plant, says he collects four tonnes of second-hand plastic a day, a quarter of which comes from Kani Qirzhala. 'It's saddening to see children working in the landfill. They are not supposed to work there, but the refugees need the money,' he says. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]
Please Do Not Use/ Iraqi children end up working in a landfill
Once it is shredded into chips, the plastic is sold for between $100 and $200 per tonne. According to Naswan, 100 tonnes of plastic is shipped every month from his factory to other regions in Iraq, as well as to Turkey and Iran. [Sebastian Castelier/Al Jazeera]