Children among thousands in Pakistan trapped into working for pittance

Hundreds of thousands of so-called bonded child labourers at are forced to work seven days a week in Pakistan's brick kilns. These workers are trapped by family debts that are often impossible to pay off into working 14-hour days in return for a pittance in pay.While it’s illegal in most countries where it goes on, human rights groups say bonded labour is one of the most widespread ways of forcing people to work against their will. Bonded labourers account for many of the 12 million people the United Nations classifies as modern day "slaves."

Entire families in countries such as India, Nepal and Brazil find themselves unable to escape spiralling debt and threats of violence, sometimes resorting to desperate measures to free themselves or their children, according to human rights advocates. Every morning 17-year-old Naser wakes up to make bricks, toiling for 14 hours a day, seven days a week. This is what he has done for most of his life. He's never been in school and he's never had the chance of a proper childhood. If he doesn’t obey his boss, Naser says he pays a price: "He beats me up if the work doesn't get done," he told human rights group researchers.

Kiln owners often trick poor people into bonded labour by giving them loans. Families agree to work off the debt but their bosses add on high interest and living expenses, making it impossible to repay the debt, as their salaries are often less than £3 a day."Forced labour – you can say it's the worst form of slavery," said Ghulan Fatima of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front, a human rights group which fights to free families from Pakistan's brick kilns.

If labourers refuse to work, Fatima says they face brutal recriminations. "He will be killed, his daughter will be abducted, she told CNN news channel. “His daughter will be sexually harassed."Even a lady who has given birth to a child, she has to work there. If she will not, she will be treated harshly."Some like Muhammad Mansha, another Pakistani kiln worker, are driven to desperate measures to free their families from the relentless drudgery. Mansha says he had to sell his kidney in a bid to buy his children out of the family's debt. "I had to," he says. "We couldn't pay off the debt."Mansha and his children in the end were freed by Fatima’s organisation, but countless families remain trapped.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children