Kiln workers forever bricked in by debt

Tarlahi: At the end of a village road, behind a grassy bluff, lies a hidden valley carpeted with thick red dust and canyoned with craggy mounds of earth. At the bottom, clay-coloured figures squat barefoot all day, shaping balls of mud into bricks. In the distance, a dozen scattered chimneys spew clouds of black smoke, which trail off prettily across the horizon.

This is the world of Pakistan's brick kilns, a self-contained and primitive production system that has changed little in generations. It relies on the labour of migrant families, from girls of six to grizzled grandfathers, who live in brick huts beside the kilns, rarely leave the quarries and never fully wash off the red mineral stains that seep into their feet, hands and clothing.

"My father did this work before me, and my children will do this work after me," said Abdul Wakil, 25, who makes bricks in a kiln about 33km from Islamabad, the capital. Sitting on his haunches last week, he slapped mud balls into metal molds and moved like a crab along the lengthening row of damp bricks.

The workday had started at 4.30am. By sundown, Wakil said, he would finish 1,200 bricks and earn $3.50 (Dh12.8).

His two younger sons toddled along beside him, playing in the mud. The seven year old was already at work, deftly molding balls. A gaunt old man watched from a cart, coughing frequently. He was not certain of his age but said he had been working in the kilns "since the time of Ayub Khan", a military ruler of the 1950s.

"This work shortens your life. No one would do it by choice," said the man, Abdul Sadiq.

Brickmakers toil near the bottom of Pakistan's economic and social ladder, forever at the mercy of heat, dirt, human greed and official indifference. By law, they cannot be compelled to work or be kept in bondage; in practice, the great majority are bound to the kilns by debt. The work is seasonal and families move often, but if they leave one kiln for another, their debt is transferred to the new owner. If they try to escape, they said, they are hunted down.

At least 200,000 Pakistanis, many of them children, work in more than 2,500 kilns across the country, according to studies by labour advocacy organisations. Their plight is well known and often described as a national disgrace.