Caption: Mohmen, Pakistan, Credit: Gregory Warner
Image by: Gregory Warner 
Mohmen, Pakistan 

Tannery Worker

Series: WORKING
From: Homelands Productions
Length: 00:07:21

Gregory Warner profiles a teenager from a village in rural Pakistan who works in a dead-end job in a tannery in Karachi. Read the full description.
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Tannery Worker
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Homelands Productions

Tannery_small Mohmen left his village at 13 and quickly found work stacking animal skins in one of Karachi's many tanneries. Now 17, he's still doing the same job.  His boss says Mohmen's a good kid — smart, hard-working, easy to get along with. But with no education, he's gone about as far as he can go. He can't even stand by the window when the fumes overtake him. He sends almost all of his money home. Sometimes, Mohmen says, he feels caught in a loop: the longer he works, the deeper his debt; the older he gets, the more his parents depend on his income. "I don't want to smile," Mohmen says, "but it's all I can do." Gregory Warner's profile is part of the WORKING series from Homelands Productions. 

Tannery Worker | 00:07:21

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Piece Description

Mohmen left his village at 13 and quickly found work stacking animal skins in one of Karachi's many tanneries. Now 17, he's still doing the same job.  His boss says Mohmen's a good kid — smart, hard-working, easy to get along with. But with no education, he's gone about as far as he can go. He can't even stand by the window when the fumes overtake him. He sends almost all of his money home. Sometimes, Mohmen says, he feels caught in a loop: the longer he works, the deeper his debt; the older he gets, the more his parents depend on his income. "I don't want to smile," Mohmen says, "but it's all I can do." Gregory Warner's profile is part of the WORKING series from Homelands Productions. 

Intro and Outro

INTRO:

There's a good chance your favorite purse or leather jacket spent some time in Pakistan. Leather makers all over the world sent their animal skins there to be processed. Tanning is Pakistan’s second biggest source of income. But it depends on the work of young men or boys, some as young as 7 or 8, who arrive every day from small villages to find work in big city leather factories. Gregory Warner went to Karachi to meet one of them. His profile is part of the WORKING series from Homelands Productions.

OUTRO:

That was Gregory Warner reporting. WORKING is produced by Homelands Productions in collaboration with Marketplace Radio. To see pictures and hear audio, go to working.homelands.org. While you're there, you can also tell the world what you think about YOUR job.

Additional Credits

WORKING is a collaboration between Homelands Productions and Marketplace Radio. Major funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Related Website

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/segments/working/mohmen.html

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