During the rainy season, brick factory workers and their families struggle to survive

“When the rain started, we often thought it would soon pass. The clay blocks could dry later, when the sun came out again. But there were always new showers, and everything we had laboriously achieved during the day dissolved and became one with the earth from which we had painstakingly formed the blocks.”

58-year-old Mushtaq Masih from the Kasur district in the Pakistani province of Punjab describes the desperate situation of brick factory workers during the monsoon season. The Christian father of ten children spent 26 hard years of his life in debt bondage in a brick factory. He recently thanked the ISHR and its partner organisation, Human Friends Organisation (HFO), for the legal and financial support that enabled him to escape from this situation.

Sajid Christopher of the HFO explained further:

“Debt bondage is a form of modern slavery that forces those affected to work under extreme exploitation to repay debts. It is illegal and also prohibited by law in Pakistan, but nevertheless widespread. In order to work off their debts, workers must submit to harsh conditions; for example, they are not allowed to leave a small area around the kiln. Often, the burden of their parents’ debts is passed on to their children, who, despite being far too young, are forced to perform heavy physical labour, even if it causes them chronic health problems.”

Mushtaq Masih is grateful that he can now start living an independent life. © HFO

Mushtaq Masih’s skin has been literally tanned under the scorching sun, his hands are covered in calluses and his health is poor. Supported by his wife Shamim Bibi and their children, he endured the heavy burden of work; they started before sunrise and produced their building materials until long after dark. However, there is now cause for celebration for the three youngest children, aged seven, nine and 15, as they are finally about to start school. Until now, they have known nothing but work: they watched their parents toil and had to help out themselves even before they started school. In order to earn an average daily wage of three euros, the whole family had to work for around 14 hours a day.

The mountain of debt is usually insurmountable, as it increases not only due to usurious interest rates, but also through the accumulation of further debt when workers have to borrow money to support their families due to loss of earnings. This usually happens during the monsoon season. This is how Mushtaq Masih and his family became dependent on his employer, who took advantage of the situation and exploited his labour. Just as he did not receive continued pay in the event of illness, the company also paid him nothing during the rainy season when he was unable to produce and fire bricks for weeks on end.

The dried bricks are transported to the kiln on donkey carts. Fired bricks can already be seen in the foreground. © M. Koller

Since 2024, the ISHR has had a close partnership with the Human Friends Organisation in Pakistan. Together, we are working to alleviate the plight of brick factory workers’ families, most of whom belong to religious minorities, including a disproportionate number of Christians, who make up just under two per cent of Pakistan’s population. We are freeing those whose children are particularly at risk from this situation. This requires negotiations with the management or owners of the company, which requires a great deal of tact and takes time. In this way, only the most dramatic fates can be remedied. In order to tackle the problem at its root, so to speak, the ISHR is also appealing to the government in Islamabad to finally enforce the 1992 law abolishing debt bondage on a broad scale. However, there is also the acute need of numerous other working families, which the ISHR learns about through its local partners.

Sajid Christopher of the HFO wrote to us on 6 August 2025:

“Since July, heavy rains have begun here in Pakistan. The fields of the brickworks have turned into mud lakes. The workers have not been paid since then. They now lack the basic necessities of life, and their situation is exacerbated by their debt burden. To tide them over the rainy season, we are asking for financial support for food, medicine and other urgent needs.”

Sajid Christopher and his team at HFO are currently supporting 20 families living under debt bondage. The estimated cost of securing the survival of one family during the rainy season amounts to approximately 200 euros.