This year’s Labour Day arrives with the usual slogans of labour dignity and official messages celebrating workers’ contributions. Meanwhile, in the brick kilns and mines, children still toil in dust and heat.
Pakistan has a modern slavery problem. It can no longer bury its head in ceremonial speeches. The 2023 Global Slavery Index estimates that 2.349 million people in Pakistan live in modern slavery, placing the country 18th globally by prevalence and fourth in Asia and the Pacific. There are more than 20,000 kilns across the country, employing about 4.5 million workers. Over ninety per cent of kiln workers are believed to have taken an advance loan, or peshgi, the small sum that becomes a chain around a family. Religious minorities make up only about five per cent of Pakistan’s population, yet they constitute up to half of kiln labourers in Punjab and Sindh.
A British parliamentary inquiry found that the kiln industry has made a handful of owners wealthy through “broken backs of millions of the poorest.”
Beyond kilns, Pakistan’s labour tragedies have been frequent and devastating. In 2012, more than 260 garment workers died in a factory fire in Karachi’s Baldia Town, and the families of the victims are still demanding health and safety reforms.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan documented at least three major mining accidents in 2018 that killed 57 miners. Even where the law bars children from hazardous work, the reality in mines and kilns keeps mocking the statute book.
Pakistan’s constitution forbids slavery, forced labour and the employment of children under fourteen in factories, mines and hazardous work. Parliament outlawed bonded labour through the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992, followed by provincial amendments. The International Labour Standards Unit does note that provinces have strengthened penalties and limited wage advances in recent legislation.
Punjab’s 2016 brick kiln ordinance also prohibits the employment of children under fourteen at kilns. These laws are admirable, yet weak enforcement remains the graveyard of reform. Labour inspections are sporadic, provincial labour departments are under-resourced, and workers in agriculture, domestic work and small enterprises remain outside meaningful union protection.
There are glimmers of change. Punjab has formed a fifteen-member steering committee to eradicate forced child labour, and the Punjab Labour Code 2026 attempts to consolidate scattered labour protections into a modern framework. At the federal level, digitisation and labour law reforms are being sold as pathways to welfare schemes, registration and skills training. Good. However, Pakistan would do well to appreciate these reforms without mistaking them for achievement. Labour Day 2026 cannot, therefore, be just another holiday.
Inflation has eaten into real wages, while informal workers often earn below the minimum wage and work without safety equipment. Community activists should use digital tools to document abuse and make kin families visible. The 18th Amendment devolved labour to the provinces. This makes coordination harder but also allows competition for better standards. That choice now sits with those standing at the wheel. *