Building bricks

We as citizens need to show more conscience and join in the fight of the brick kiln workers.

When we look at the stately brick houses that stand in all our cities, we should be looking beyond their beauty and at the labour that went into creating those blocks of baked clay. But, of course, it is easy to forget that brick kiln workers are among the most deprived members of our workforce, or our responsibility to help build better lives for them.

Attention was drawn to the realities of some of the discrimination and injustice brick kiln workers face by 1,500 persons, including kiln workers and activists, who marched in Multan recently. They pointed out that kiln workers were paid below the minimum wage. Whereas under existing regulations, a brick kiln worker should be paid, at least, Rs740 for 1,000 bricks produced, they were paid only Rs450-500 for this number. The workers, of course, toil in appalling conditions, with entire families, including children, engaged in the process of digging up clay, moulding bricks, drying and baking them — in an effort to produce as many as possible each day. Bondage is a hazard, with the workers forced to take advances from kiln owners to make ends meet, and then being unable to pay these off and escape the debt trap. The presence of laws against bonded labour has not been enough to save them from their plight.

Urgent attention needs to be directed the way of the brick workers. In Multan, they have tried to draw attention to their plight. They have done so from time to time in the past too — through courts and through rallies. But too little has changed. The lives of tens of thousands of kiln workers remain as grim as ever. This needs, somehow, to change. The government, of course, needs to take action, but we as citizens too need to show more conscience and join in the fight currently being fought by too few. The brick kiln workers need a fair wage, an end to other injustices and better working conditions, with children removed from the workforce and placed in the classrooms where they belong.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2014.

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