In June 2020, Father Abid Tanveer, vicar general of Faisalabad Diocese, joined the diocesan Caritas team to distribute food packages among 35 families of brick kiln workers at Khurryanwala.
The following month, Amjad Gulzar, executive director of Caritas Pakistan, joined the diocesan unit of Lahore Archdiocese to distribute nutrition kits among children living in a bhatta in Sheikhupura.
Amjad Gulzar (standing third from right), executive director of Caritas Pakistan, at a brick kiln in Sheikhupura after distributing aid packets for children in the kiln.
Church commissions like the Justice and Peace Commission of the Major Religious Superiors Leadership Conference are struggling to fight the prevalent bonded labor with awareness sessions.
The commission has been working for the rights of brick kiln workers in Punjab and helping to prepare their national identity cards and social security documents since 2004.
In the past seven years, the commission has succeeded in getting national identity cards for 20,000 brickmakers and social security cards for 400 bonded laborers.
It also secured freedom for some 1,000 workers by waiving their advance payments through court orders.
Since March, Hyacinth Peter, executive secretary of the commission, has inaugurated 10 houses for Catholic brickmakers and their widows in Francisabad village in Punjab province.
“Many brickmakers are bound to live near the kilns because of no jobs or a place to live. Covid-19 has restricted funding for the project. We are using personal resources to build small one-room houses to provide them a shelter where they can live with dignity,” said Peter.
Hyacinth Peter (left), executive secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Major Religious Superiors Leadership Conference, inaugurates a house for a brickmaking family in Francisabad, Punjab province.
“Brick kiln workers face physical torture and sexual harassment if any of their male family members manage to run away from the kiln. Owners threaten us with severe consequences if we demand a raise in return for our labor.
“Debt chains feed the brick industry with cheap labor and a continuous supply of young workers. The possibility of advances attracts most of the workers, who often need to ask for additional loans which cannot then be repaid. If the laborer dies, the debt is passed on to the children. Family loans can pass from one generation to the next. They follow their debt from one kiln to another.”
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, children working in brick kilns have a higher rate of mortality, while one in 20 children lose their eyesight. Around 35 percent of female workers in brick kilns have been victims of torture and harassment, the commission stated in its latest press release.
The hidden star
Shamoon Mansha, 21, was tortured by a brick kiln owner in Bath after his father helped a news channel to film a documentary about their kiln in 2006.
“He remained in hiding for two years after the kiln owners joined forces to take action against the facilitator. I was beaten with a stick and pressured to disclose his whereabouts. But I kept adamant. Later the owner agreed not to hurt my dad,” he said.
Mansha began working at the brick kiln when he was four. The Backwards Rehabilitation and Improvement Commission Pakistan (BRIC Pakistan), an NGO running literacy centers for juvenile brickmakers, supported the Christian family and helped in paying back their debt of about $600 in 2009.
Shamoon Mansha shows a Swedish magazine covering his visit to Sweden as a jury member of the World’s Children’s Prize Child.
In 2016, Mansha was selected as a jury member of the World’s Children’s Prize Child, a Swedish program that educates and empowers children to become change makers. Since 2017, he has visited Sweden three times with Liaqat Javed, founder of BRIC Pakistan.
“It was a dream sharing the stage with Queen Silvia and Asa Regner, the former Swedish minister for children and the elderly. My exposure changed my life,” said the sixth-grader who now runs a BRIC Pakistan literacy center for other children at his own house in Bath.
“It was the first time I saw people treated as humans. I have made hundreds of international friends to support our cause. My brothers now work in garment factories and an industrial estate near the village. I am helping the youth find similar careers with better employment benefits outside the kilns.”
BRIC Pakistan
Since it was established in 1997, BRIC Pakistan has secured the freedom of 70 brickmakers like Mansha’s father by paying back their loans. Twenty of them are Muslims. Javed, the Christian executive director of BRIC Pakistan, used to make bricks in Bath. The father of three still carries a scar from a shovel on his left foot.
“My family was under a debt of 24,000 rupees but they admitted me to a nearby government school. I used to help them mold the bricks on returning home in the afternoon,” he said.
While studying in grade 12 at Forman Christian College of Lahore, Javed wrote columns and engaged in social services to return the loan. Now he runs nine-month courses at 10 literacy centers in Punjab province. Thirty primary centers are being run in brick kiln communities for younger children. More than 1,000 have received basic education in centers based in brick kiln communities.
In retaliation, brick kiln owners have registered three police cases against Javed. In 2004, he was attacked at a kiln while securing the freedom of a family.
“The younger brother of the kiln owner didn’t know about my negotiations with his family and had gathered more than 10 armed workers. On receiving the payment, they tried to snatch my mobile phone and wallet. By the time the owner arrived, I was dazed,” he said.
Two police cases were also registered against him.
“Bonded labor is also prevalent in the surgical instruments industry. Children as young as 12 make surgical instruments in hazardous conditions in cramped workshops filled with metal dust and the noise of the grinders, polishers and generators. Human rights groups in Pakistan are focusing more on the brick kilns,” said Javed.
In April, the chairman of the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry claimed that exports of surgical goods and medical instruments reached $500 million in the last financial year.
In 2012, Swedish missionary Birgitta Almeby of the Full Gospel Assemblies Church (FGA) was shot in Lahore. BRIC Pakistan supporters helped many brickmakers to learn sewing and other skills at FGA technical education centers. She died in Stockholm after she was flown back to Sweden for specialist medical care.
“In 1997, an NGO took my sister and her friend to Sweden where the media portrayed them as leaders of change,” said Javed, nicknamed Cha Cha (uncle) by young brickmakers.
“Their passports were taken upon return to Lahore airport. They were threatened by a government official critical of their activities. They were again forced to work at a brick kiln with their families,” he said.
Javed said the plight of his sister and her friend forced him to launch his own NGO to work for the lasting freedom of brick kiln workers.
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