Teenia Harmon
10-2-09
3:20 pm
In Pakistan bonded labor is a long-term family affair. Muhammad went to a lone shark to help with expenses of healthcare, food costs and other expenses. He initially borrowed 200,000 rupees- or 2422 dollars, and in return he would work for the owner to make bricks. That was two years ago. He now makes around 2000 bricks a day and earns around 350 rupees. He has had to take out more loans for funerals and illness and now owes more money. To try and pay off the loan quicker he works from morning to nightfall. He said that his life was “work, work and work until I die,” and after Muhammad’s death his son will have to work to pay off the remainder of his father’s loans. Bond labor is even more of a family affair than that, sometimes whole families work to make the bricks. The adults prepare the clay and the kinds collect them and take them to the perilous kiln to be baked. Bonded labor was outlawed in 1992, but the laws are not enforced, and it has practically become slave labor- the owners buy and sell their workers. Like with slavery, some bonded laborers escape to freedom, but it is very dangerous and families often get separated.
I think this is such a sad story. People who cannot afford to help their families go to get loans and end up endangering their lives and the lives of the loved ones they are trying to help. I do not like the way these people are being taken advantage of, the loan sharks promise them one thing to get them to work and then change the deal, and there is nothing they can do about it because the loaners already held up their end of the deal. I also really hate that the children have to finish off paying their parents loans with their own sweat, especially if it means actual kids have to work around a dangerous kiln. These people are clearly being held as slaves, and even though there are laws against it- no one is actually doing anything.
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