Bonded labour: Trapped for $500 debts, the misery of Pakistan’s ‘slaves’

More than two million Pakistanis are reportedly condemned to a lifetime of hardship

HYDERABAD: Ranjhan has spent 40 years working in a brick kiln as a bonded labourer, tied to his employer by a debt his pitiful salary will never enable him to repay.

He is one of more than two million Pakistanis that campaigners say are trapped in modern-day slavery, condemned to a lifetime of hardship and toil.

There are laws in place to outlaw bonded labour, but still the cycle continues, with thousands of children sucked in every year by their parents’ supposed debts.

At an open-air factory on the edge of Hyderabad, tall, tapering chimneys belch out noxious smoke.



Crouching children gather lumps of clay and pack them into rectangular moulds. On the ground, long rows of unbaked bricks wait to go into the kiln.

These are the scenes that have been the backdrop to Ranjhan’s life since he was a child. “I’ve spent the last 40-odd years in this grind, sometimes in one factory, sometimes in another,”
he said.

He works every day of the week at the coal-fired kiln, where 1,000 bricks will earn him around Rs200, every single rupee of which goes straight back to his employer.

“I borrowed 40,000-50,000 rupees ($400-500) to buy food for my children. I will never pay it back before I die – my debt will die with me,” the father-of-three told AFP away from the eyes of his boss.

A global survey of slavery published last month by the Australian campaign group the Walk Free Foundation said Pakistan had the third most slaves in the world, after India and China, most of them working in brick making or agriculture.

Vicious cycle

About the origin of his debt and that of his parents before him, Ranjhan says little.

From buying food to wedding dowries to hospital visits ¬ there is no shortage of reasons why these impoverished workers would go to their boss for a loan they can never pay back.

Some trade unions are trying to improve the situation, lobbying bosses to raise salaries to the equivalent of $5 or around Rs500 a day and not to trap their workers in the debt cycle.

“Before the union, the workers here didn’t even have names, just numbers. If someone came and asked them their name, they’d say ‘Ask the boss, he’ll tell you’,” said Puno Bheel, who set up a brick-workers’ union a few years ago.

Despite their best efforts the unions are fighting a difficult battle. A few employers may have improved wages and conditions, but the unions have not persuaded any to free bonded labourers.

Breaking free

But some, like Sajan Kumar, have been able to escape.

Five years ago the owner of a rice and pepper farm where he had worked for years with his family demanded over Rs0.45 million, claiming their work had not covered the cost of feeding them.

Kumar’s uncle went to the Green Rural Development Organisation, a campaign group, which took the matter to court. Kumar and his family got more than Rs20 million in an out-of-court settlement ¬ a rare victory. He now lives in the village of Azad Nagar, near Hyderabad, which is populated by former bonded labourers.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2014.