Bonded labor is a modern form of slavery. A person is enslaved as a bonded laborer due to debt bondage when his or her labor is acquired as a way of paying a certain loan. Quite often bonded laborers are subjected to physical and sexual violence. They live under various forms of surveillance (at times through armed guards). Confined to their vicious routine of life trapped in bondage their stories represent a period of history that is reminiscent of medievalist or slavery.
Bonded labor history is as old as the history of mankind, even it exists in today where human rights are in the world and such as U.N.O (united nation organization).It is a complex phenomenon which in traditional societies has been largely viewed as a consequence of economic impoverishment and lack of alternatives and is perpetuated under the disguise of social and cultural norms. Around 67.5 percent of the population in Pakistan depends directly on agriculture. Of the total number of farmers, roughly 93 percent own just 36 percent of the land and live on the minimum level of income.
Children make up a significant part of the brick kiln workforce as well. It is noted that around 60% of the children who start work with their families at the kiln are below the age of 13.These children are usually the siblings of their parents or are grandchildren of a person who was the original debtor. They are denied the freedom to move out of the kiln premises and the mortality rate among them is very high.
Our minister Shahbaz Shareef work to stop it but many families don’t let their children study because they want money to spend on their food, not in the education.
Brick-kiln in Pakistan
Brick making is a small scale traditional industry. Almost all brick kilns were located in rural and semi-urban areas where the demand for bricks is very high. Brick making has seemed as a craft which transfers through generations within the families. In the modern era, technology was very advanced but there is no technology for making brick. Although computers have made a lot of difficult work easier, there has been nothing for the brick kiln industry. In Pakistan brick making bricks were made in bull trench kilns which are a traditional method. The labor recruited on the brick kiln through a middleman or employer. There is the hierarchy in brick making labor all the labor were interdependent. The workers were bound to work on brick kiln by giving an advance minimum for a season. The attitudes of the owners were very strict with their workers. He never even allows them to leave the area. If a person wishes to leave the kiln, he has to pay back all his debts to the owner before he leaves. In this situation sometimes he takes to advance from his new master and pays it back to the old one. This comes down to virtually selling himself.The Brick Kiln Owners Federation puts forward an estimated figure of 6,000 brick kilns in Pakistan, with an average of 25 families at each site.
