Slavery in the 21^st century

In 1995, 12 year old Iqbal was murdered in Pakistan under mysterious circumstances.
Shootings are an everyday occurrence in Pakistan. But this murder was different because Iqbal was one of the leaders of the Bonded Labourers Liberation Front (the BLLF).
Bonded labour otherwise known as debt slavery is rampant in Pakistan. The system works as follows. Desperately poor families go to a feudal employer usually a brick kiln owner or a carpet manufacturer and ask them for a loan, perhaps to pay for medical treatment for a sick child.
In return for the loan, the entire family is turned into the private property of the employer. They are forced to work long hours for pitiful wage and half of these wages are kept by the factory owner as payment towards the loan.
The loan may take a generation or more to pay off. But until it is paid, the family are held in slavery.
Iqbal had been sold by his mother to a carpet manufacturer at the age of four. For years he spent twelve hours a day, seven days a week working in carpet factories for a pittance.
He eventually rebelled against his conditions and became a major figure in the BLLF. At the age of 12 he was traveling Pakistan addressing mass meetings and leading demos of thousands of children against industrial slavery.
To this day, his murder has never been satisfactorily explained. Fingers of suspicion have been pointed in the direction of Pakistan’s ‘carpet mafia’ - the wealthy men who have made themselves rich by exploiting tiny children.
In Lahore, I spoke to Khalid of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and Artur and Rashid of the Bonded Labourers Liberation Front (BLLF) about child labour in Pakistan today.
Khalid is a renowned radical journalist. He recently wrote an introduction to an edition of our book Imagine, which was published recently in Pakistan.
Right now, he is spearheading a drive to reduce and eventually eradicate child labour in the carpet industry in Pakistan. He told me:
"These children work in very dangerous, hazardous conditions. The ventilation is bad – and asthma, bronchitis, tuberculosis are rife because of inhalation of the fibres.
"There is lot of disease. The children are so poor their diet is appalling and often they have no washrooms or sanitation."
Khalid explains that the quality of a fine carpet depends on the number of knots per inch. The average is 15 knots per inch, but it can be many more. The light is poor and the children’s eyesight gradually deteriorates.
"They hold the knife in the right hand, while the left hand is used to knot the threads. You can easily tell a child who works in the carpet industry. Their hands are rough with slash scars all over the fingers."
Khalid says that most children work between five and eight hours a day – and are paid five rupees (about 6 pence) for a whole day’s work.
Even a skilled adult worker in the carpet trade will not earn more than 50 rupees for an eight hour a day – which works about 7 pence an hour.
Prices in Pakistan are about one fifth the level of prices in Europe on average. But wages are at least 50 times lower on average.
The project that Khalid is involved with aims to encourage parents to send their children to school instead, by providing free education.
He says that 70 per cent of children working in the carpet trade are girls, because of traditional prejudice which discourages girls from education.
But as Khalid points out, it is not easy to persuade parents to send their children to school instread of work.
"I talk to their parents and they say: ‘Yes, we want our children to be educated, but we want food also, we want bread also. You can’t extinguish hunger with education.’"
If conditions in the carpet industry are grim, in the brick kiln industry they are truly shocking.
In the North West Frontier Province, I watched young Afghan children working in the sweltering heat of an October afternoon, baking bricks in vast open air ovens. In high summer temperatures in this area frequently soar to 120 degrees Fahrenheit and more.
This is an industry that is built almost entirely on bonded labour.
Artur explains the bonded labour system in the brick industry: "Entire families work for between 16 and 18 hours a day. The owners – who are also the local feudal landowners - have given them loans.
"They are paid a maximum of around 700 rupees a week (about £8) among six to eight family members – the father, the mother, the children perhaps also elderly grandparents.
"The owners – who are also the local feudal landowners - have given them loans. From that 700 rupees, they will pay half towards the loan.
If they try to flee the brick kiln, the owners will send their guards or the police to capture them and physically beat them."
There are 20,000 brick kiln factories spread throughout Pakistan. Each of them employs 80-100 families who live in villages attached to the factories.
These are isolated communities without schools or hospitals. The houses are made out of mud and lack running water or basic sanitation.
Artur, who managed to break free of the bonded labour system and educate himself says: "Whole families are born in the brick kiln factory, live their all their lives there and die there without ever leaving.
"It is not just the individual who is bonded – it is the entire family who is bonded. If the father dies, the debt is handed down from generation to generation. The children become bonded, then their children become bonded. It is a vicious circle."
Rashid is 55 and has worked in brick kiln factories since he was child. His family are still in bondage.
"I worked in the brick kiln factory of a very influential politician. We had to borrow 500,000 rupees –(about £6,000).
"One hundred and fifty families – including my family - were sold to another owner. The were just bundled into trucks and transported 500 miles across the country to the North West Frontier.
"They had no choice. My family still owes 350,000 rupees. The are trapped there until they pay it off."
By my calculations it will take them another 20 years to clear this debt.
Artur and Rashid now travel the country recruiting to the Bonded Labourers Liberation Front.
"We have a lot of problems organizing the brick kiln workers. When we go there we ask them to join our union. If the owners smell that this is someone from the outside he will bring in the police and try and get us arrested.
"They will tell the police that this man is a criminal, that he is a drug trafficker. They also employ bodyguards who will sometimes beat us up," says Rashid
At this stage, only a tiny minority of the brick kiln workforce are organized. But in June this year, over 1000 bonded labourers from all over Pakistan attended a conference of the BLLF in Lahore.
"The owners are well organized. They have the Brick Kiln Factory Owners Union and they are very influential with links to police and military chiefs, the government and the civil bureaucracy.
"It is a tough battle, but we are fighting back."