In Pakistan, over 15,000 brick kilns play a significant part in the economy, producing about 45 million bricks per year. But many of the 3 million workers have been trapped there by debt bondage, a form of forced labor.
“It truly is modern-day slavery in every sense of the word,” says Greg Kelley with World Mission. “We met people that had been born in these brick kilns that have been there 40 years, members of second and even third-generation families. [Their] slavery was initiated by a debt of maybe as little as $100 of a medical bill that they couldn’t pay. The slave owners pay that debt; then they own these people.”
Horrible conditions
These people have to live in shacks near the kilns. If they do not make their brick quotas, they are assaulted or starved. Sometimes, the owners even kidnap the daughters of the kiln workers, selling them into the sex trade.
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SOURCE: Mission Network News, Kevin Zeller
CALL TO ACTION
- Pray for the eradication of brick kiln slavery in Pakistan.
- Pray many more kiln workers in Pakistan will encounter Jesus, the One who sets slaves free.
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