White smokestacks mar an otherwise cloudless desert sky, their toxic fumes not only a by-product of the more than 20,000 brick kilns that exist across Pakistan, but also a sinister warning to the 4.5 million people enslaved there: You cannot pass beyond our bounds.
“There is nothing we are happy about here.”
Inside these kilns, generations of families—men, women, and their children—work for hours on end, seven days a week, under a scorching desert sun. Children mix sand into mud with their bare feet while their parents and grandparents crouch, endlessly pressing that same mud into molds and firing them in underground kilns that can reach temperatures of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Older siblings carry toddlers on their hips, symbolizing yet another generation that will have only this toil in their future. “There is nothing we are happy about here,” one man told a reporter before he covered his face and cried. His son, just 12 years old, mixed mud nearby.
Nearly every building across the country is made of brick, making these kilns an economic necessity for the country’s infrastructure. But what isn’t necessary is the modern-day slavery used within them. Workers become entrapped here when they accept loans from the kiln owners, ultimately bonding themselves and their families to pay down their debts. But not only are those debts nearly impossible to repay because of the meagerness of their wages, the amounts are also almost never revealed to the workers and are typically repeatedly inflated, thus creating an endless cycle of servitude, generation after generation.
“This 21st-century slavery has made Pakistan’s brick kiln owners into rich men,” Lord David Alton, co-chair of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Pakistani Minorities told one media source. “Their wealth has been accumulated on the broken backs of millions of the poorest and helpless laborers who have paid a high price in human misery.”
Outlawed but Ignored
Though bonded labor was outlawed in Pakistan many years ago, it continues to be overlooked by politicians who are often bribed by kiln owners. And the vulnerable laborers to which Lord Alton refers typically include religious minorities who make up a mere 5 percent of the country’s population. (An estimated 1.9 percent of the population are Christian.) Within the kilns, these minorities account for approximately 50 percent of the workers, and according to one report, in some cases, for every 100 kiln workers, up to 80 are Christians.
These workers not only endure the daily misery of making 1,000 bricks each day, but they also are victims of additional human rights abuses, particularly women and children. Women are raped by kiln owners or sold into marriage or prostitution if their husbands escape. Children are often born into servitude and know no other life. Some reports estimate that more than half of the workers in some kilns are under 10 years old.
Indigenous missionaries know all too well the plight of brick kiln families, and they aim to provide them opportunities at a better life through the provision of meals and free education. At one school run by Christian workers, 225 children from the kilns—some are orphans—attend free of cost. Missionaries from another native ministry distribute Bibles to children and lead Sunday school classes as well as provide school supplies.
“In recent months, an inspiring transformation has taken root within the community, particularly among the brick kiln families, driven by the potent influence of the gospel.”
“In recent months, an inspiring transformation has taken root within the community, particularly among the brick kiln families, driven by the potent influence of the gospel,” one ministry leader said. “A burgeoning awareness of the importance of education is sweeping through the community, ignited by the gospel’s impact and persistent efforts to champion learning.”
Through missionaries’ perseverance in encouraging and sharing Jesus as well as gifting basic necessities to these families, these once hopeless people have begun to see that life could be different. “Families are breaking free from historical constraints, empowering their children to dream big,” the ministry leader said. “This transformation is a testament to the gospel’s capacity to elevate, empower, and reshape lives for the better.”
Though the plight of those enslaved within brick kilns is far from solved, missionaries can testify to the hope that Christ has given them. Please consider a donation today to help native ministries in their quest to make a difference. To bring hope and change to millions of people who have never had the opportunity for a better life. Please pray that the gospel message will refresh these weary souls and remind them that, one day, life will be beautiful.