DEBT BONDAGE AND CHILD LABOR IN PAKISTAN

Pakistan's Kiln Workers Bricked In by Debt (The Washington Post)

"'This work shortens your life. No one would do it by choice,' said the man, Abdul Sadiq. 'The problem is that you can never earn enough to leave. If your wife needs an operation or the rainy seasons lasts too long, you have to borrow from the kiln owners. You try to repay it, but the debt stays with you, sometimes for your whole life. It's like a pair of invisible handcuffs.'

"Brickmakers toil near the bottom of Pakistan's economic and social ladder, forever at the mercy of heat, dirt, human greed and official indifference. By law, they cannot be compelled to work or be kept in bondage; in practice, the great majority are bound to the kilns by debt. The work is seasonal and families move often, but if they leave one kiln for another, their debt is transferred to the new owner. If they try to escape, they said, they are hunted down.

"At least 200,000 Pakistanis, many of them children, work in more than 2,500 kilns across the country, according to studies by labor advocacy organizations. Their plight is well known and often described as a national disgrace. Human rights groups have exposed cases of kiln owners chaining or imprisoning workers; reformists have initiated programs to forgive their debts and educate their children.

"But resistance to change has been stubborn. Kiln owners tend to be economically powerful and politically well-connected, while many brick workers are illiterate, nomadic, cut off from modern society and unaware of their rights."

See also anti-caste: ESTIMATED 8 MILLION BONDED LABORERS IN PAKISTAN (June 26, 2006) and CASTE-BASED BONDED LABOR IN PAKISTAN (March 13, 2006)

Comments

[maci tucker]

STOP SLAVERY TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!