Harare, Zimbabwe – On a rainy Sunday afternoon in Zimbabwe’s capital, three children aged between six and nine were searching for scrap metal just as the informal welders at Siyaso market were about to close.
Early the next day, the boys return to the informal steel manufacturing market, which has now become partly collection points for discarded metal components, to collect the scrap metal and resell it.
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“We are only afraid of the dogs that may chase you, but usually we are safe and no one suspects us (of stealing),” says eight-year-old Takudzwa Rapi. “Sometimes they let us pick up the junk when they have something they no longer want.”
Takudzwa stops on the side of the road to buy donuts with the previous day’s earnings. She saves some for her older sister at her home in Matapi, dilapidated council-run apartments that were hit by a bedbug outbreak last year.
Siyaso is located near Mbare, a low-income neighborhood just south of Harare city centre. Mbare is a bustle of activity with scrap metal collectors (mostly people from unemployed or poor backgrounds) searching for any discarded metal.
Recyclers carry bags full of scrap, while those with bulky supplies use hand-pushed carts that can carry up to 1 ton.
While adult recyclers are mainly involved in plastic and bottle recycling in Zimbabwe, children like Takudzwa have also made their way into the scrap metal trade, scavenging for anything from vehicle engine components, metal offcuts from manufacturing or plates coated in copper and brass.
This is despite the country’s child labor laws that prohibit the employment of children under 16 years of age.
Takudzwa and his friends often go to Siyaso before and after school, wandering the welding and fabrication yards or the garbage heaps in search of scrap metal, which they carefully pile in a sack in a nearby corner.
Mbare traders and dealers buy scrap from the boys for between 10 and 20 cents per kg, depending on the quality. Three dealers here admitted to Al Jazeera that they pay young scrap metal collectors less because “they are not looking for a lot of money” compared to adult collectors, they said.
Another of the children, Quinton Gandiwa, also eight years old, says he gets paid more for scrap metal coated with brass and copper. Therefore, children can earn up to $1 per small piece.
“Brass and copper pieces pay more, but they’re hard to get,” Quinton says. “We have to look for food in less popular areas, like garbage piles, and on a good day, you get lucky and get $1 or more for just a small piece, which is a lot, and we can buy whatever we want for home and school.”
Children hope to earn a few dollars or cents to help their parents pay for household needs, they say. But dangerous occupation carries risks.
“Dangerous and unhealthy conditions”
At a waste dump in Siyaso, Wayne Mpala, now 33, says he started collecting scrap metal when he was a child.
While he knows it’s a way for young children to earn much-needed money, he says kids digging for scrap metal run risks to their health and safety.
He recalls an incident 25 years ago when, at age seven, a sharp nail pierced the soft heel of the plastic sandal he was wearing. The injury prevented him from working for two weeks, but he was lucky not to get tetanus, he says.
The scrap metal collecting activities of youths in Mbare are indeed risky, said Adolphus Chinomwe, senior program officer at the Zimbabwe office of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
“Hazardous child labor is work in dangerous or unhealthy conditions that could result in the death, injury or illness of a child as a result of poor safety and health standards and poor working conditions,” says Chinomwe.
He would like the Zimbabwe government to intervene.
Although child labor is illegal under the Constitution, the US Department of Labor found in 2022 that the southern African country is still witnessing some of the “worst forms” of it, with children making up about 14 percent of the workforce in sectors such as industry and agriculture.
The ILO estimates that some 4.2 million children in Zimbabwe are involved in child labor.
Al Jazeera contacted Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare with questions about what measures 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 $64 billion in 2025 and is expected to rise to $94 billion by 2032 due to demand from the global construction sector. Furthermore, the growing demand for scrap metal such as iron, copper and aluminum is being driven by rapid industrialization and urbanization in developing regions.
The African Development Bank recognizes the intensifying wave of steel recycling in Zimbabwe. In a 2021 report it said that “African countries without domestic iron ore production, such as Zimbabwe, also produce crude steel, potentially relying on imports or scrap recycling to produce iron and steel products.”
Observers say this means more and more young people from poor backgrounds are increasingly venturing into dangerous jobs at the bottom of the supply chain to access that steel and iron.
According to a 2025 report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), nearly 138 million children were already involved in child labor around the world, including around 54 million in “hazardous work” that would likely endanger their health, safety or development. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to bear the heaviest burden, accounting for almost two-thirds of all children in child labor worldwide.
The “dog eat dog” industry
In Zimbabwe, children have been braving piles of scrap metal for decades.
Mpala tells how he started scavenging for scrap metal to resell to dealers and distributors at the age of seven.
“We woke up at 6 in the morning because we only started classes after 10 in the morning, so we used the time in between to go look for scrap metal to resell in Siyaso and be able to cover what we didn’t have at home,” he says.
“I come from a poor background and that money was very useful to me in all aspects.”
For years, Mpala, along with other children his age, continued collecting scrap metal before and after school. When he finished high school in 2010, he had difficulty finding a job in the challenging economic landscape, so he continued in the scrap metal trade full time.
In the 2020s, the industry was booming in Zimbabwe, with scrap metal buying centers popping up around Harare and scrap yards in neighborhoods such as Mbare.
Some centers feed recycling and local steel manufacturing, while micro-buying yards, which then resell to large traders such as Chinese or local companies that export to neighboring South Africa, are also on the rise, traders and dealers say.
For Mpala, the growing trade presented an opportunity and in 2024, he decided to partner with his colleagues to establish his own mini scrap metal buying center in Mbare, moving up the industry value chain.
He now buys scrap metal from recyclers, including small children.
Mpala weighs a variety of scrap metal from a collector and negotiates the price down to as little as 10 cents per kg. He then resells it for more than 40 cents per kg.
“It’s dog eat dog. We don’t have a fixed price. If you accept a lower price then we get a big score, so it’s around 10 to 15 cents per kg,” he said, adding that scrap metal trading 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 an industry” in Zimbabwe and lacks payment standards and collective bargaining.
As for children working as waste pickers, Makombera blamed poverty.
He said what is needed is a robust implementation of “social protection systems to reduce economic vulnerability,” highlighting that “without adequate protection, events such as job loss, disease, crop failures or natural disasters often push children into child labor” and into hazardous occupations such as scrap metal collection.
“It is dangerous for young people”
In Mbare, Takudzwa and his friends dream of a more fruitful future.
They hope to finish school and get well-paying jobs that will help them support their struggling families. Most want to work in the informal sector, as they see that informal traders sometimes earn more than those who are formally employed.
“When I’m older, I want to work hard to support my family,” Quinton says. “I dream of a nice house and being able to afford everything that we can’t afford now.”
Meanwhile, the parents of some of the children recognize the dangerous occupation their children engage in, but still see it as a necessity that brings them extra money.
“We can’t afford everything they want, so sometimes it’s good for them to go and earn some money for themselves,” says the mother of one of the three children, although she prefers not to be identified. “I know that sometimes we can also use money when we find ourselves in a difficult situation.”
However, he admits that “it is dangerous for them when they are children.”
“We hear that they are sometimes targeted by adult collectors,” he says.
“Poverty is one of the most important determinants of child labor,” says the ILO’s Chinomwe. “Families with insufficient income often rely on their children to contribute to household income or help in family businesses, and child labor perpetuates the cycle of poverty by depriving children of education and limiting their future employment prospects,” it adds.
When Mpala started collecting scrap metal when he was seven years old, he also dreamed of growing up and having 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 come full circle: since he was a child collecting scrap metal to sell to larger dealers, he now buys scrap metal from the small children of Mbare, among others.
The money can help young children from poor homes, he says. He believes it is better for them to take some risks to scavenge for scrap metal and earn a few pennies rather than go to school without lunch or pocket money.
He adds that the amount earned collecting scrap metal is good for children, but “not very good for older collectors” as they have families to take care of, although many adult collectors are still involved in the trade.
Today, Mpala is grateful for the work that has helped him earn a living over the years.
“My income varies, but I think I earn an average of $10 a day, which allows me to buy some food and take care of myself,” he says.
“Scrap metal has sustained me both as a child and now as an adult.”
