Kabul, Afghanistan, October 4--Whoever wins Afghanistan's presidential election this week, the lives of Najiya, and Zakir Hussain, aged nine and 10 respectively, aren't going to change much.
They spend several hours a day tying knots to weave intricately patterned rugs in the courtyard of their mud-walled home in the western outskirts of Kabul, their hands flying over the loom and scything off loose ends of twine with small knives. Zakir goes to school for about three hours a day, said their elder brother, Ali Jaan, 15. Najiya, a cherubic young girl with bright eyes and a white nylon scarf draped over her head, plays for a few hours, but spends the rest of the day at the loom.
It takes a month to make a standard-sized 5-square metre (54 sq ft) carpet, for which the family will get about 12,000 Afghanis (152 pounds).
This is a rare bright spot in the economy of Afghanistan, one of the world's most wretchedly poor nations.
Prices paid to weavers have almost doubled since the fundamentalist Taliban regime was overthrown about three years ago, with more buyers coming in from overseas and booming demand from aid workers and other foreigners now in the country.
The other main industries in the landlocked, war-torn nation are poppy and opium production, which account for up to half of GDP, and some export of fruit.
Still, incumbent President Hamid Karzai can't take much credit for the uptick in the carpet trade or count on these votes in the October 9 poll, the first time Afghans will hold a direct presidential election.
The weaver families of Qalai Nazer village on the western outskirts of Kabul are likely to vote for their ethnic Hazara clansman Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, one of 18 contestants, even though he appears to have little chance of the presidency.
"Karzai has promised a lot -- roads, electricity," said Mohammad Reza, a wholesaler who has farmed out carpet weaving contracts to about 50 families in the village.
"He has not fulfilled the promises. Mohaqiq fought the Taliban, he is famous for that."
Karzai has been endorsed as president by a tribal council, but few in the country forget that like most of the Taliban, he too is a Pashtun, the majority ethnic group in Afghanistan.
His main rivals for the presidency are from the Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek communities.
Posters of the Hazara candidate, Mohaqiq, adorn much of dusty Qalai Nazer, including one pasted above the loom where Najiya and Zakir were toiling.
There is no electricity in the village, and an open drain runs down the middle of the mudpacked street, the smell spread by winds careening down from the nearby bare brown hills.
Just metres (yards) away, the potholed main road heading toward downtown Kabul is jammed with cars and donkey carts and lined with stalls selling fruit and vegetables, meat and timber for firewood.
Still, says Reza, the wholesale dealer, it's not a bad life. "Security is better than it used to be," he says. "And if there is security, business is good."
Despite the child labour, he says the carpet trade is not exploitative. "My own children do it," he says. "It's within the family."
Reza would sell his rugs to someone like Ali Mohammad, an Uzbek retailer whose tiny one-roomed shop in central Kabul is piled high with mostly maroon woollen and silk carpets.
Here, posters of Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum, also a presidential candidate, are everywhere.
Mohammad, too, says business is better than it used to be under the Taliban but refuses to be drawn further into politics.
His main concern, he says, is that he needs to sell more than the five to 10 carpets he manages to offload each month. He'll sell them for what he can get, but averages about $400 (222.5 pounds) per piece.
"I am not interested in the election, I'll accept anyone," he says. "Anyone who can bring peace, stability and freedom. Anyone who comes to office, I will support."
