I mean, won't kids in your imaginary world have chores? Learning to cook or clean is also education (the alternative would be: ever heard of the anecdote of young adults who go to college and don't know how to do laundry?). Sadly for this remote part of Afghanistan in the next few years, practical education is probably going to be more useful compared to book education.
And maybe I'm just romanticizing the concept, but I imagine the kids would be mostly running around playing on the hotel grounds, and once in a while a bunch of travellers would show up, and the hotel caretaker would then yell for the kids to help prepare tea or food for them.
OP lives in a fantasy world where every culture should be bulldozed to make way for endless middle class cul-de-sacs and McMansions. It's perfectly normal in most of the world for children to be involved in family businesses or even working to help support the family, rather than living in some entitled bubble where they're the center of everything.
I find it strange that child labor invokes such a strong feeling in any article about EV, being associated with cobalt mining, yet it receives such a glove treatment in this discussion.
Since I joined in on this thread, my "glove treatment" might be romanticizing it, but "helping out" in a quiet hotel/guest house in the mountains is surely a lot more kid-compatible than a coalmine. The top commenter's comment that the article glossed over the fact that kids were made to work in such a place feels overblown. Hey maybe the reality of this hotel work is a bit harsher, but since the reporter didn't shine a light on it, I'd assume she also judged the same way.
If the article was about a coal mine and the NYT just glossed over the fact of child labor, then I would agree with such a comment; an article glossing over child labor in a coal mine would be shitty.
Edit to add: I like your angle about "It must be an anti-EV brigade!" though, keep on investigating, you're on to a conspiracy! /s
And maybe I'm just romanticizing the concept, but I imagine the kids would be mostly running around playing on the hotel grounds, and once in a while a bunch of travellers would show up, and the hotel caretaker would then yell for the kids to help prepare tea or food for them.