Thread by @AJEnglish

THREAD 👇

4.5 million people, including children, work in almost 20,000 brick kilns across Pakistan to pay off family loans taken from business owners.

What was once a small loan ends up trapping generations into bonded labour.

These are their stories: aje.io/z6bla

These workers are promised 962 rupees ($6) for making 1,000 bricks a day; most of them get less than half of that.

Yasmin started work at this kiln outside Lahore a year ago. Her husband is ill and they have no money for medicine aje.io/z6bla

Illness, bad weather and accidents often result in lesser number of bricks being made despite the involvement of the whole family aje.io/z6bla

In Pakistan, it's illegal to employ someone under 16 years of age.

Yet almost 70% of bonded labourers in Pakistan are children - many of them inheriting their parents' debt or kept as hostages if their parents leave the kiln aje.io/z6bla

Bonded labourers in Pakistan live in deplorable conditions and the water they use to mix the soil gives them skin diseases.

Hazardous fumes from the kilns cause asthma, tuberculosis and other diseases aje.io/z6bla

"The bricks that these workers make are used to make our houses, hospitals, schools ... and parliament ... they get no education, health facilities and the laws and judiciary systems are failing them." - Ghulam Fatima, Bonded Labor Liberation Front aje.io/z6bla

Michael Masih and his family worked at a brick kiln for a decade before they were freed with the help of Bonded Labor Liberation Front.

But some workers who manage to flee or are freed are forced back into labour by the owners aje.io/z6bla

Ghulam Fatima, the founder of Bonded Labor Liberation Front has been shot at, tortured and put behind bars - but says those incidents gave her more courage to fight for these workers aje.io/z6bla

A high-ranking police officer in Lahore told Al Jazeera there is no contract signed when these workers are taken to a brick kiln.

Read more on Pakistan's bonded labour here 👇: aje.io/agmk7