They rummage through garbage dumps in search of recyclable material to sell. With bare feet and insects flying about, they continuously toil to earn meager wages to feed their families.
And on Wednesday night, College alum Mohammed Naqvi presented their plight -- the plight of Afghan children refugees living in Karachi, Pakistan -- with his documentary Terror's Children to a group of nearly 40 students and faculty.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, a number of Afghan citizens were forced to flee Afghanistan for neighboring Pakistan, and Naqvi hoped to illustrate the situation in which these refugee children have been placed -- a situation that often goes unseen by American audiences.
"I wanted to show an Eastern perspective that might be different from what we normally think about in America," Naqvi said. "The purpose of making this film was to educate... the world about the situation this next generation is experiencing."
And the situation, by all accounts, is a dire one.
"They are living in a survivalist culture, where children are no longer children because they have to grow up so early," he added.
Having completed interviews with eight different refugee children, Naqvi and his colleague Sharmeen Obaid worked for many months to produce a work that gave a close look into the lives of these people.
Showing a number of sequential fragments of their lives, the documentary intertwined the distinct stories of these refugees.
One of those profiled was 13-year-old Abdur Raheem, who worked as a carpet weaver for 80 cents a day after 12 hours of labor. His older brother was injured in an accident, and after arriving late to work following a visit with his brother, Raheem was fired from his job.
The video camera recorded his dismissal, capturing the young boy's shame with the realization that the only reliable worker in his family was unemployed.
Audience members said they were appreciative of the different perspective that the film presented.
"Being from Karachi, I have grown up with these conditions around me," College senior Leena Mandviwalla said. "Pakistanis themselves are also unaware of these issues in refugee camps... [the film] gave good exposure to these problems."
Engineering and Wharton junior Sameer Qudsi agreed that the film gave a very unique look into the children's lives.
Because of Naqvi's Pakistani heritage and close association with the country, "he was able to give us an inside look at the situation in Pakistan," Qudsi explained. "As someone who is interested in going to Pakistan to help foster technological and economic development, I really appreciated the insight from the film."
