By: Inshaal Sarfraz
32 long Years have passed since the Punjab Assembly passed the Bonded Labor Abolition Act (1992 Act) while 8 years have passed since the 2016 Punjab Prohibition of Child Labor was passed. Far from being eliminated or even reduced, bonded labor has infact increased blatantly in past years. According to the 2001 PILER Report, around 500,000 women, men, and children were trapped in this gruesome slavery (Ercelawn and Nauman 7). Later Reports indicated staggering numbers, ranging from 750,000 to 900,000 workers and 5,000 brick kilns in Punjab (Javaid 105). At present, the numbers remain unknown as no survey has been conducted to gauge the extent of debt bondage.
The monster of bonded labor has long been named as a ‘human rights issue’ – something which law alone can fix. This framing shifts the entire burden onto the courts and police, allowing government authorities to conveniently get off the hook. The result is the complete indifference of the state towards the plight of the bonded laborers. The government seems to think that passing the Act was enough and that the existence of the law would miraculously lead to justice. This fetish with law and the belief in the inherent goodness of law is a common myth in the world. The reality however, is that multiple laws exists but so does bonded labor. Thus, the existence of the laws cannot guarantee justice. For a woman working in a brick kiln all day long, in the brutal heatwave, with her child beside her, what relief does the law offer? Her lived experience of the law is not justice but pain. Some argue that the main issue lies in non-implementation of the law. However, that’s only half the truth. The law is implemented – but selectively in our country. It is enforced along the lines of caste, class, gender and ethnicity. This is why not a single offender has been prosecuted under the 1992 Act till today (PILER). And even when once bonded laborers were freed, it wasn’t through the Act itself but through the habeas corpus petitions filed by NGOs like the Bonded Labor Liberation Front (BLLF).
It is imperative to examine why the laws intended to abolish bonded labor have failed altogether. The failure is two-fold: one part lies in the poor drafting and structural gaps in the law itself and the other lies in the socio-political realities that suffocate what little hope the law could offer. The 1992 Act tasked the district magistrates with the responsibility to release the bonded laborers and ensure their rehabilitation. However, actual enforcement is nonexistent. The root of the inaction lies in the reliance on district-level implementation – a model widely assumed to bring justice closer to people but in Pakistan it has proven to be a convenient dumping ground for issues the state wants to forget. Bonded labor is one such issue. Let’s consider domestic abuse: The same district magistrates are tasked with leading local committees under Domestic Violence Acts yet those bodies remain inactive. It is no hidden fact that local governments are widely acknowledged to be rampant with corruption and poor accountability (DAWN). Even when corruption isn’t the core issue, the local authorities lack the resources and coordination capacity to bring the major stakeholders such as police, NGOs, brick kiln owners to the same table.
The 1995 Rules, under the Act, introduced the Vigilance Committees to enforce bonded labor laws. Yet these committees, only found in major cities, are non-functional. As of 2025, it remains unclear how many of them were formed and if they were whether they operate at all. Legally, these committees lack representation from the key stakeholders of the bonded laborers themselves, labor unions and provincial and federal authorities. The committees of major cities have been consistently underfunded and mostly the funds have been corrupted. As in 2001, General Musharraf’s National Policy and Plan of Action for the Abolition of Bonded Labor allocated a budget of 100 million rupees for bonded labor initiatives, but none of this funding was in reality used by the committees to solve the problem (Upadhyaya 21).
Apart from the structural gaps, the social dynamics on ground present their own wall of resistance. In many rural districts – where brick kilns are common – the police have reportedly sided with the kiln owners registering false theft cases against laborers who try to flee (Ercelawn and Nauman 2239). The reality is that these owners often belong to powerful political families, another major contributing reason for law enforcement agencies not to act justly. Thus, the system isn’t broken. It is working exactly as it was allowed to.
After examining the legal failures, one might assume this is really a law and order issue but the roots run far deeper. Unless we confront those roots, we will only keep pruning the branches of the wild tree that continues to grow back with more intensity. On the surface, the problem appears to be the forced slavery – brick kiln owners coercing workers to work under the pretense that they have not repaid their loans (peshgis). But the real crises lies in the reasons these loans were taken in the first place. In the absence of the social safety nets, families are forced to seek advances from kiln owners during moments of desperation – illness, funerals, dowry. These loans offer momentary relief like a flimsy raft in a violent storm. But once the storm passes, the same raft is dragged into a dark cave—where it becomes a trap. Crushing interest rates, inhuman treatment, and exploitative wages make it nearly impossible for workers to break free. The subcontracted nature of brick kiln labor allows owners to pay workers the bare legal minimum wages which, notably, were not even raised in the most recent budget. So even if the law were enforced tomorrow and every bonded laborer set free, their freedom would be precarious. Without social protection, access to fair employment, or economic alternatives, these workers would remain just as vulnerable – trading one form of bondage for another.
What Pakistan needs is not another law but a policy rooted in lived realities of bonded brick kiln workers. This industry, contributing 1.5% to the national GDP (Khan and Shahzadi 65) must be recognized as a formal industry and the bonded labor needs to be transformed into a formal contractual labor. To make this possible, the government should offer subsidies to kiln owners to register their businesses and formally enlist their workers. This would enable laborers to obtain CNICs, giving them access to health, education, and financial services. Additionally, state-backed microcredit schemes, such as those offered by Kashf Foundation, must be expanded to provide emergency support during crises—so workers don’t have to turn to exploitative advances (peshgis) ever again. Above all, a coordinated effort between the government and labor ministry is vital. Labor unions must be empowered not just in name but in structure with representation from the grassroots and bonded laborers themselves. This is the only way to prevent the continued cruelty of the peshgi system and hold brick kiln owners accountable.
The government’s indifference cannot be justified any longer. Every day, we hear public officials speak of upholding the Constitution yet the same Constitution is being violated blatantly in these kilns. Article 3 (elimination of exploitation), Article 9 (security of person), Article 11 (prohibition of slavery and forced labor), and Article 15 (freedom of movement) of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan are all being trampled by the continued practice of debt bondage. If the Constitution is to mean anything at all, it must