Zimbabwean child waste-pickers work ‘hazardous’ jobs to help their families

Harare, Zimbabwe – On a drizzly Sunday evening in the Zimbabwean capital, three boys aged between six and nine scout for scrap metal just as the informal welders in Siyaso Market are about to close for the day.

Early the next day, the boys return to the informal steel fabrication market, which is now partly turned into collection points for discarded metal components, to pick up the scrap for reselling.

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“We are only afraid of the dogs that can chase you, but usually we are safe, and no one suspects us [of stealing],” says eight-year-old Takudzwa Rapi. “Sometimes they allow us to pick the scrap whenever they have something they no longer want.”

Takudzwa stops by the roadside to buy doughnuts with the previous day’s earnings. He keeps some for his older sister back at home in Matapi flats, dilapidated council-run apartments that were plagued by a bedbug outbreak last year.

Siyaso is located near Mbare, a low-income neighbourhood just south of the city centre of Harare. Mbare is a bustle of activity with scrap metal-pickers – mostly unemployed people or those from poor backgrounds – in search of any discarded metal.

Waste-pickers carry sackfuls of scrap metal while those with bulky supplies use hand-pushed carts that can carry up to 1 tonne.

While adult waste-pickers are mostly involved in plastic and bottle recycling in Zimbabwe, children like Takudzwa have also jostled their way into the scrap trade – rummaging for anything from motor vehicle engine components, metal cut-offs from fabrication, or copper- and brass-coated plates.

This is despite the country’s child labour laws that prohibit employment for children below the age of 16.

Takudzwa and his friends usually go to Siyaso before and after school, strolling around the welding and fabrication yards or rubbish heaps for scrap metal, which they carefully pile up in a sack in a nearby corner.

Traders and dealers in Mbare then buy scrap metal from the boys for anything between 10 and 20 US cents per kg, depending on the quality. Three traders here admitted to Al Jazeera that they underpay young scrap metal-pickers because they “are not looking for big money” compared with the adult pickers, they said.

Another of the boys, Quinton Gandiwa, also eight years old, says he gets paid more for brass- and copper-coated scrap. For that, the boys can earn up to $1 per small piece.

“Brass and copper pieces pay more but are hard to come by,” Quinton says. “We have to forage in less popular areas such as rubbish heaps, and, on a good day, you get lucky and get 1 dollar or more for just a small piece, which is a lot, and we can buy whatever we want for home and for school.”

The boys hope to make a few dollars or cents to help their parents pay for household necessities, they say. But the hazardous occupation comes with risks.

A waste-picker in Harare sorts through scrap to sell [Tawanda Karombo/Al Jazeera]

‘Dangerous, unhealthy conditions’

At a waste site in Siyaso, Wayne Mpala, now 33, says he started picking for scrap as a child.

Although he knows it is a way for young children to earn much-needed money, he says the boys foraging for scrap metal risk health and safety hazards.

He recalls an incident 25 years ago when, aged seven, a sharp nail pierced through the soft heel of the plastic sandal he was wearing. The injury stopped him working for two weeks, but he was lucky not to contract tetanus, he says.

The young boys’ scrap collection activities in Mbare are indeed risky, said Adolphus Chinomwe, a senior programme officer for the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Zimbabwe office.

“Hazardous child labour is work in dangerous or unhealthy conditions that could result in a child being killed or injured or made ill as a consequence of poor safety and health standards and working arrangements,” Chinomwe says.

He would like the government of Zimbabwe to intervene.

Though child labour is illegal under the constitution, the United States Department of Labor found in 2022 that the Southern African country is still witnessing some of the “worst forms” of it, with 14 percent of children aged 5 to 14 part of the workforce.

The ILO estimates that some 4.2 million children in Zimbabwe are involved in child labour.

Al Jazeera reached out to Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare with questions about what action the government is taking to protect children exposed to illegal employment, but it did not respond.

Analysts say the global scrap metal recycling market was worth about $64bn in 2025 and is projected to rise to $94bn by 2032 because of demand from the global construction sector. Furthermore, rising demand for scrap metals such as iron, copper and aluminium is being fuelled by rapid industrialisation and urbanisation in developing regions.

The African Development Bank acknowledges the intensifying steel recycling wave in Zimbabwe. It said in a 2021 report that “African countries without domestic iron ore production such as Zimbabwe also produce crude steel, potentially relying on imports or recycle scrap to produce iron and steel” products.

Observers say this means that more young boys from poor backgrounds are increasingly venturing into dangerous work at the bottom of the supply chain to access that steel and iron.

According to a 2025 report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), nearly 138 million children were already engaged in child labour globally, including about 54 million in “hazardous work” likely to jeopardise their health, safety or development. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to carry the heaviest burden, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all children in child labour worldwide.

Young men strip old electronics for recycling in Mbare township [File: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

‘Dog eat dog’ industry

In Zimbabwe, children have been braving scrap metal heaps for decades.

Mpala recounts how he began foraging for scrap metal for resale to traders and dealers at the age of seven.

“We would wake up at 6am because we only started lessons after 10am, so we used the time in between to go and forage for scrap for resale at Siyaso so that we could cover for whatever was not there at home,” he says.

“I come from a poor background, and that money became very helpful in all respects.”

For years, Mpala, along with other boys his age, continued picking scrap metal before and after school. When he finished secondary school in 2010, he struggled to find a job in the challenging economic landscape, so he continued in the scrap metal trade full-time.

By the 2020s, the industry was booming in Zimbabwe, with scrap metal buying centres popping up around Harare, and scrapyards dotting neighbourhoods like Mbare.

Some centres feed into local steel recycling and fabrication, while micro-buying yards, which then resell to big traders like Chinese businesses or locals who export to neighbouring South Africa, are also on the rise, dealers and traders say.

For Mpala, the growing trade presented an opportunity, and in 2024, he decided to team up with colleagues to establish their own scrap metal mini-buying centre in Mbare, moving up the industry’s value chain.

He now buys scrap metal from the waste-pickers, including the young boys.

Weighing an assortment of scrap metal from a picker, Mpala negotiates the price down to a mere 10 cents per kg. He then resells it for anything above 40 cents a kg.

“It’s dog eat dog. We don’t have a fixed price. If you accept a lower price, then we score big; so it’s anything between 10 cents and 15 cents per kg,” he said, adding that dealing in scrap metal is not for the faint-hearted.

Dickson Makombera, a recycling expert in Harare, told Al Jazeera that “remuneration for all waste-pickers is not fair because the recycling industry is not considered as an industry” in Zimbabwe, and lacks payment standards and collective bargaining.

Regarding children working as waste-pickers, Makombera blamed poverty.

He said what is needed is the robust implementation of “social protection systems to reduce economic vulnerability”, highlighting that “without adequate protection, events like job loss, illness, crop failure or natural disasters often push children into child labour” and dangerous occupations such as picking scrap.

The boys look for scrap metal in Mbare, dreaming of a brighter future [Tawanda Karombo/Al Jazeera]

‘It’s dangerous for young boys’

In Mbare, Takudzwa and his friends dream of a more fruitful future.

They hope to finish school and land well-paying jobs that help them provide for their struggling families. Most want to work in the informal sector, as they see informal traders sometimes earning more than those who are formally employed.

“When I grow up, I want to hustle hard so that I can support my family,” says Quinton.”I dream of a nice house and affording everything we can’t afford now.”

Meanwhile, the parents of some of the boys acknowledge the dangerous occupation their children undertake, but still view it as a necessity that brings in extra money.

“We cannot afford everything that they want, so sometimes it’s good for them to go and earn some money for themselves,” the mother of one of the three boys says, though she declines to be named. “I know sometimes we can also utilise the money whenever we are in a tight situation.”

However, she admits that “it’s dangerous for them as young boys”.

“We hear that sometimes they are targeted by the adult collectors,” she says.

“Poverty is one of the most significant determinants of child labour,” ILO’s Chinomwe says. “Families with insufficient income often rely on their children to contribute to household earnings or assist in family businesses, and child labour perpetuates the cycle of poverty by depriving children of education and limiting their future employment prospects,” he adds.

When Mpala first began picking scrap metal as a seven-year-old, he also dreamt of growing up to have a good job. He wanted to be a mechanic or a factory manager, he says, but those dreams remain elusive.

Still in the scrap metal trade, he has now gone full circle: from a childhood picking scraps to sell to bigger traders, he now buys scrap from those young children in Mbare, among others.

The money can help young children from poor households, he says. He believes they are better off taking a few risks to forage for scrap to earn a few cents rather than going to school with no lunch or pocket money.

He adds that the amount earned by picking scrap metal is good for the children, but “not very good for the older pickers” as they have families to look after, yet many adult pickers still engage in the trade.

Today, Mpala is grateful for the work that has helped him earn a living over the years.

“My earnings vary, but I think I average about $10 a day, which affords me to buy some food and to take care of myself,” he says.

“Scrap metal has sustained me both as a boy and now as an adult.”