Women labour in the heat of the day under a crude tented factory. The Moshim Ahmady Company in Herat city Afghanistan.
At any one time there are between three hundred and fifty to four hundred and fifty women a day working under the boiling tent, seven days a week from seven a.m. to four p.m.
The women earn two U.S. Dollars a day with no additional benefits. They have to keep their children and very young babies with them. The babies suffer from a multitude of health (mainly respiratory) complaints due to the huge amounts of dust in the tent. When the children reach seven years old they join in the mothers in the painstaking work of separating goat hair fibres. The final product being the fashionable Pashmina scarf-which in this instance are sent to shops in Belgium via Iran.

Image for UNICEF.