Pakistan’s Economy of Child Labor- Problem: Illiteracy

A toddler at work in a brickyard

A few years ago we learned how an American, Garth Weibe of Massachusetts, was making a difference for a  number of children toiling in the brick yards of Pakistan by using Alpha-Phonics to teach reading. The conditions he found were appalling and represented just a tiny portion of the children who suffer the horrible and almost inescapable lives of poverty and near-slavery in the kilns of Pakistan.

We decided it was time to take another look at how the lives of so many indentured children are faring.

What we found is not encouraging.

Of the approximately 40 million children in Pakistan some 19 million of them (almost half) work long, hard hours every day under extreme and often cruel conditions.

One of the most grueling jobs is that found in the brickyards, of which there are thousands all over the country and employ nearly 10 million laborers directly and indirectly. Of these there are an estimated one million children, usually working 14 hour days, six days a week.*

“Children are cheaper to run than tractors and are smarter than oxen.” (Rawalpindi land owner)

Most of these indentured servants start their careers in debt that does nothing but increase during their lives and when they die that debt can be passed on to their family. As a result many Pakistanis are born into bonded labor and have no chance to better their lives. Often a parent will make a deal with a local owner to sell the labor of their child for much needed money on which to survive. The owner is generous and readily promises to pay. The catch is that they will see very little of this “loan” (called “peshgi”), only a meager down payment. The rest is “paid” in installments against the small wage the child will earn, as little as 75 rupees a day ($1.25). Most Pakistanis in this situation feel lucky to even see a third of the money promised. The rest of this “generous” loan is eaten up by the growing debt incurred from purchases of food, medical expenses, and rent.

Keep in mind that the brick industry is just one segment of an economy depending heavily on bonded (slave) labor; the horrors of the textile industry, so important to the country’s economy, are as bad or worse.

Pakistan’s government is well aware of the problem but seems to be unable to mount the will to do anything about it, despite a number of laws passed expressly forbidding it. If anything, the problem has grown worse than ever.

What is needed to pull these unfortunate children up from this poverty?  More Garth Weibe’s.

To view the full story of Garth Weibe’s trip  to Pakistan where he taught local people with Alpha-Phonics click here.

For more information,  please use the following links:

Unfree Labor in Pakistan
*Pakistan Observer
Donations: Christian Soul Foundation

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