Donkeys are used for manual labour in developing countries because they work until they collapse. To understand why Pakistan’s poorest mining communities overwork their donkeys, you have to first understand the situation these men are in. Hours away from their families, earning £1.50 a day, they can’t afford to return home and see their wives and children more than once a year. They sleep beside their donkeys in breezeblock rows. They hope that if they work hard enough, maybe they can afford to send their son to school so that he doesn’t end up as a miner too.
They are unhappy, lonely, poor and angry. Some men have been working underground for twenty years, others are just 14 year old boys. Being angry with the situation doesn’t help. Removing the donkeys from the equation doesn’t work. These communities can’t afford to mechanise the mines, so if this generation of donkeys were removed, the miners would buy more donkeys.