Brick Workers in Pakistan
Debt slavery of
brick kilns in Pakistan
Facing brutal working conditions, including temperatures that can reach upward of 120 degrees Fahrenheit, around 150 families work every day to hand over their quota of 1,500 bricks to the kiln owners. Many of these families are stuck in debt bondage and work to repay their loans. Many of these families are stuck in debt bondage and work to repay their loans. They make $1.50 a day and are told another $1.50 goes toward their debt. However, as there are no set contracts or conditions to these debt agreements, the families often don’t know how much money they owe, how much interest is being added onto their debts, or how much longer they will have to continue to work before the debts are repaid. Earning low wages, they have to keep borrowing money from the wealthy owners just to survive.
Manzoor Masih 70, her son, his wife, and their 10-year-old child (In School going age) spend their days making bricks in Pakistan in sweltering heat, breathing in harmful brick dust in conditions amounting to modern slavery. Trapped by debts, families are often unable to leave the brick kilns. Javid, aged 10, knows no life outside of the mud pits and kilns. Two decades ago his family borrowed money from the owner of the brick kilns, and they now spend their days molding and firing bricks under the scorching sun to pay the debt. The brick kiln owner retains half of their earnings, but the family is never shown a balance and doesn’t even know what they still owe. Unscrupulous industry
The Manzoor Masih family are four out of millions of Pakistanis who work in kilns just like these, similar to many other industries around the country making wealthy landowners even more successful whilst those who are most marginalized and with the fewest options for economic survival are at risk of becoming trapped in modern slavery.
The problem can be partly linked to the cultural caste system. Families considered to be of a lower caste are availed of only the least desirable jobs, face poor treatment in the workplace due to discrimination, and are faced with greater barriers to accessing their rights.
Javid’s family are purposely kept in the dark about their loan balance and are made to work in dangerous, unsanitary, and inhumane conditions. Safety is of negligible concern. At the very same kiln, three workers burned alive when they fell into the blaze that is used to bake the bricks. These kilns add to 90% of the country’s air pollution and 20% of kiln workers have chronic respiratory problems they are ignored by modern society because they don’t have any medical facilities even their Children do not go to school. because they can’t afford their School or Medical treatment expenses. And so they die working there. And thus they remain slaves to their masters.
Child labor
About a third of kiln workers are children in Pakistan, a country in which child labor is illegal. Bonded labor is also unconstitutional in Pakistan, however, it is believed that many of these wealthy kiln owners are politically connected and have been likened to operating like a “mafia
The process of making bricks
The process of making bricks is laborious and physically exhausting. First, one must accumulate enough dirt to mix with water. Then, the mud is kneaded until it becomes clay. Donkeys are used to transport nearly 5,000 bricks from the plots to the fire kiln every day. Workers stack the bricks in underground ovens where they bake for days, usually over a month. The kilns are estimated to reach nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The kilns are covered with sand and gaps are filled with wood. Kiln workers risk their lives with the threat of cave-ins. In July 2022, three workers died when they dropped into the blazing kiln. Once the bricks are fully prepared, construction sites use them for everything from building houses to supporting bridges and canals. So God gave us the burden to open the Schools for these bricks kilns worker’s children who have lost all hope for their bright future and secular and religious educate them for a better future. Although we know that this will not be an easy task for us. But we need your prayers and support for all these great tasks.
