Bonded labour: Bailiff rescues 10 brick kiln workers

‘They had been illegally detained and made to work from 5am till 6pm’

MULTAN: Ten members of a family were recovered by a bailiff on Wednesday from a brick kiln where they had been illegally detained, Ehad executive director Munazzah Hashmi told participants of a training session at Haqqani Bricks Company in Makhdoom Rasheed on Thursday.

She said Ehad had filed a petition in court to retrieve the workers from the factory.

Ittefaq Bricks Company’s owners Rana Mustafa, Chaudhry Ali and Rehmat Ali had detained Muhammad Yaseen, his wife and seven children Shahzad, 24, Abid, 20, Jumma, 12, Khan Muhammad, 10, Sanwal, two years old, Aasia, 9, and Shazia,7, she said. They were made to work from 5am in the morning till 6pm. She said Yaseen had contacted Ehad organisation for help. She said they had petitioned the court which then sent a bailiff to retrieve the family from the Ittefaq Bricks Company at Mahaywala Chowk on Wednesday. “The government needs to implement the laws protecting the rights of labourers,” Hashmi said.  Kiln labourers, in particular, are deprived of basic facilities including safe drinking water, she said. Hashmi said kiln workers were being exploited because they were not aware of their rights. “They are not granted social security…which is sheer injustice.” Speaking at the session, Tahir Shahzad, a resource person, said the government had notified the minimum wage at Rs962 for 1,000 bricks but a lot of the workers were not paid more than Rs650 for 1,000 bricks. He urged the government to take necessary measures for the protection of rights of kiln workers.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2015.